Star Bar Park City
Star Bar Park City
Park city’s newest cocktail lounge located at 227 Main Street.
Located in the historical Star Hotel, the Star Bar holds onto Park City history while bringing a modern, refreshing new buzz to the town.
The cottage then passed on to Lung Hing D. Grover, a Chinese-American from San Francisco. Most Chinese people settled in China Town, living in tents, on what is now Swede Alley. They were not permitted to work in mines and instead worked in boarding houses, kitchens, and laundries. Grover, though, managed to purchase almost 60 houses in Park City, mostly for use as boarding houses, benefiting from a law that forbade mining companies from forcing employees to pay to live in company-owned housing.
It was later sold, by Joe Grover, L.H. Grover’s son, to the Spanish Allende family who added the Star Hotel to the front of the existing cottage. This is why it has its unique Spanish Revival style. During Prohibition Frank Allende was arrested for a fire caused by a mishap with a still in his own home, the Alaska Hotel, and then fined $299 after pleading guilty.
In 2015 a previous owner, Carol Rixie, died when the attic floor she was standing on collapsed and she fell through to the second floor. The building had fallen into complete disrepair. The Rixie’s had purchased the Star Hotel in 1975 from the Gardeners who owned it briefly with nothing of note to mention. The Rixie’s were responsible for enclosing the porches and plastering over the exposed brick on the ground level.
In 2017, a new owner argued before the town that the whole building should be demolished and that it was not a responsible decision to attempt to save any of it, so they could build a different structure. The town refused to state that as a historic structure it still had historic merit and that it needed to be preserved in some fashion. But the town agreed that though it could not be demolished it had to be deconstructed as it had become a safety hazard. The then-owner gave up and put the tired structure back on the market.
The property on which Big Dipper and Star Bar sits began life as a small cottage in 1889, owned by the Huys. Records reveal that they rented the six-room building for $15 a month. The porch of the original cottage was damaged in 1916 from a frightened runaway horse-drawn cart tearing down from Empire Canyon.
The Star Hotel was acquired by Aaron Hofmann in 2018, who saw the need and the value of the building to the character of Main Street and Park City itself. The Star Hotel has been deconstructed and reconstructed under his watchful eye, using some of the original elements from the previous incarnation including the appearance of the 1920’s façade and its rock work. It was a stressful process for all involved, from the owner to the laborers and contractors, to the management team, and has taken three years to come back to life, better than ever.