Fire-Damaged De Soto Hotel to be Saved, Renovated

On February 4^th of this year, the De Soto Hotel caught fire, doing significant damage to the 116-year-old landmark.  Now, the owner of the building says he’s going through with plans to renovate the building.

Rogelio Gonzalez, who bought the De Soto for $700,000 in 2019 says he’ll go ahead with his initial plans to renovate and then look for buyers for the structure. But, he says, the fire and the resulting damage will mean the project will be delayed.

“We were going to start in February”, Gonzalez told the El Paso Times, “This will delay it another year or so before it gets started”.

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Here are a few questions and answers about the future of the De Soto Hotel:

Q: What will the De Soto be when it’s completed?

A: The plan is for it to be renovated into a boutique hotel with 24 rooms. Rogelio Gonzalez says the bottom floor is being turned into a space for a restaurant.

Q: Did they ever discover what or who caused the fire?

A: No. The El Paso Fire Marshall’s Office recently closed the case without determining a cause for the fire.

Q: What’s going to happen to the El Paso boxing mural on that one outside wall?

A: The building owner says the original plan was to replace the mural with a new one. He says that the future of the mural is now uncertain.

Q: Is the De Soto Hotel really haunted? Could GHOSTS have started the fire??

A:  Probably not, as the existence of ghosts is not something that science has any solid evidence for.