Every summer, New Braunfels, Texas, northeast of San Antonio attracts families and groups looking to cool off by floating down one of the nearby rivers. However, a hotelier who recently revamped a nearly 100-year-old property is confident the German town in the Texas Hill Country has untapped potential for heartier year-round business.
After two years and $10 million of renovation work, Andy Duettra has reintroduced The Faust Hotel to New Braunfels just in time for the region's peak season. The complete renovation included a suite of new food-and-beverage concepts — delivering an upscale experience right as New Braunfels blooms with downtown redevelopment and population growth.
"We have a particular draw being that we're right downtown in New Braunfels," said Jason Roberts, general manager of The Faust Hotel. "Outside of the summer travel, which will definitely impact us and provide room nights for us, there's really not a nice place to get away to, and we provide a full-service operation for our guests and an elevated experience, and I think that that's really going to be the draw for us."
Rediscovering The Faust Hotel
Local businessman Walter Faust Sr. originally opened the property on Oct. 12, 1929, as The Travelers Hotel. Faust saw an opportunity for a quality hotel as more people began traveling through the area.
"When the hotel was first built, it's because New Braunfels had really become a crossroads of commerce, coming from Houston or San Antonio," Duettra said. "If you're going one way or the other, you're pretty much going through New Braunfels."
As the banker, Faust backed the project and even provided the land where the hotel stands today, lifting and rolling away the Faust family home down the street to make room for the hotel.
Another interesting part of The Faust's history was the use of pentile bricks, Roberts said. Prison inmates made the bricks and they were brought in to build what was advertised as a fireproof building — since it was made up of metal and concrete — which was rare at the time, Duettra added.
The Travelers Hotel opened just weeks before the stock market crash that kicked off the Great Depression. New Braunfels took a huge hit as the U.S. economy cratered and the town also suffered from infestations of boll weevils that devastated crops in the region.
In 1936, Faust took over the hotel as banker and it was renamed. During World War II, The Faust Hotel gained a reputation as the “honeymoon capital of Texas” due to its proximity to Texas' military bases.
"The hotel has been known as an event center in the Central Texas area since World War II, when soldiers would come in and get married here before they would ship off, so we're definitely known as a wedding venue," Roberts said.
Both Roberts and Duettra have seen The Faust Hotel and New Braunfels change over the years, each with their own personal or familial ties to the building.
"Growing up here in the Texas Hill Country — I grew up in San Marcos— I knew the Faust from its history," Roberts said. "As a kid back in the '80s, my parents and my grandparents would take us to Sunday brunch at The Faust, and it was a big to-do, it was a fancy space, and we dressed in our Sunday best. And that's really kind of where I saw this property in the renovation kind of hearkening back to."
Duettra, who grew up in Santa Fe, said his grandparents lived in Galveston, and New Braunfels was a convenient place for his parents to stop and let their kids jump in the river to cool off. Duettra's wife, who's family is from the area, has brought him back regularly to New Braunfels. After Duettra managed some successful vacation rental properties in New Mexico, he saw an opportunity in The Faust.
"We've been coming here over the last 35 years a ton, and just before our 30th anniversary, we were pulling out of my wife's dad's law office, which is right across the street from The Faust, and it was the final sort of straw that broke the camel's back," Duettra said. "It's always looked kind of like crap every time I've seen it for 30 years, and being in it one or two times, I've confirmed that it was crap. And I had finally had enough and called a realtor friend."
Duettra managed to track down the hotel's previous owner, a local electrician who cared for the building but didn't have much hospitality expertise. In May 2022, Duettra purchased the hotel. At first, Duettra said he struggled to put a value to the hotel since there's really nothing like it in the region.
"We ran it for about 18 months while we tested the proposition that it just basically [had] not been run in a modern way with modern marketing and all that kind of stuff that would draw in people because the prior owners just weren't really hospitality folks," Duettra said.
He added that his own expertise also fell short when it comes to the food and beverage space. As a result, Duettra brought in Lark Hospitality to manage the hotel and its restaurants.
With a plan in place, Duettra and his team closed down The Faust Hotel at the end of 2023 to begin a total renovation.
Renovating a 'glittering jewel'
Over the years, The Faust Hotel's owners contributed a varied amount of upkeep, but the building needed a total overhaul, Duettra said. The plan was to gut the building but maintain the historic exterior and refurbish key elements of the property when they could.
"100 years in, we all need a little reset," he said, adding that the the building is now "fresh from top to bottom."
The construction and design teams peeled back plaster, rediscovering the building's original pentile construction and also preserved some of the design elements of the building.
The Faust "was a glittering jewel in the 1920s and '30s," Duettra said. "What if you were doing that today, what would it look like? And that's what this [renovation] is. It's upgraded, roaring '20s and '30s style. ... The entire lobby has the original cast iron chandelier fan units there, the sconces in the ballroom, and we kept everything that we could.
"It's just a really great blend of old and new and leaning into that '20s era."
The hotel's design features that are new are made to look old, Duettra said. Roberts added that each of the rooms are unique and the whole style is cohesive.
"Everything has this artwork and wall coverings — this whimsical feel to it, and our lighting package really lends itself to that Art Deco 1920s feel," Roberts said. "I'd say each room is bespoke, and you'll never see the same artwork in any room throughout the hotel. Same with the art in the guest room corridors — they're all original pieces, and create a individual experience in every single guest room."
The construction process didn't have any major obstacles since it was almost completely a full gutting and rebuilding, Duettra said. As part of the renovation, internal systems like plumbing, electric, HVAC, fire suppression and Wi-Fi were modernized. The project also decreased The Faust Hotel's room count and added three food and beverage concepts.
"We shrank from 63 to 45 rooms by expanding all them, making bigger bathrooms, all that, but we really needed was folks who could run what was essentially an entertainment complex with rooms upstairs, which is what it is, because there's three bars and four different places to eat," Duettra said.
The hotel's F&B concepts includes Wilhelm & Werner, a Texas-style brasserie that pays tribute to and is named in honor of Duettra's father and father-in-law. Walter's Speakeasy, which is located underground in a former laundry room, is named in homage to Walter Faust. In addition to the private dining option The Faust will have, the last restaurant is the Magnolia Patio, a patio bar and eatery.
All three of the restaurants will be expanding their hours over the course of the next few weeks, Roberts said.
"Wilhelm & Werner will be the main food-and-beverage outlet," he said. "We're open for dinner now, and we're going to start leaning into lunch service mid-June as we bring in more staff and train over the next couple of weeks. Then after that, we'll look into Saturday and Sunday brunches, so ... we're trying to perfect each meal period at a time."
From the renovated rooms to the new dining areas, Duettra said his goal was to showcase The Faust's history while providing an experience that reflects the growth of New Braunfels.
"It's a beautiful building, ton of history, and we're trying to kind of set it up for the next 100 years of creating history in town here," he said.
The future of New Braunfels
Founded in 1845 by German Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, the town established itself as a manufacturing and shipping hub with the nearby Comal River and later the railroads. But summer tourism became a dominant industry beginning with the opening of Schlitterbahn Waterpark in 1979.
With the park and the nearby rivers primed for tubing, New Braunfels has long been a drive-to summer destination for Texans between Memorial Day and Labor Day. But that's been changing, Duettra said. According to a recent report from MoneyLion, New Braunfels' five-year population growth is 31.7%. The New Braunfels Convention & Visitors Bureau reported a 13% growth in hospitality from 2022 to 2024.
"But what's been missing is upscale product for sure to stay," Duettra said, pointing to new public-partnership development adjacent to The Faust and other recent food-and-beverage openings.
"There's a whole entertainment complex that's bubbling up here that's much better than what was here five and 10 years ago," he added.
Where The Faust Hotel can come in is to fill the gap for a higher-end overnight stay.
"We're looking at a much more elevated restaurant experience, elevated cuisine. We have a fantastic chef, [Adam Gilly, who's] a super talented individual that has been working in fine dining establishment establishments his entire career," said Roberts, who began his hospitality career as a chef for Hilton.
The combination of the area's population growth, recent downtown revitalization and the town's annual calendar of festivals all point to a new era for The Faust and New Braunfels both.
"I think it's just the natural evolution of town that's going to, I hope, over time tilt New Braunfels back to maybe what it was, which is a bit more of a sophisticated center," Duettra said.