After the Cowboys football season ends this fall, a key University of Wyoming Plaza fixture across the street from War Memorial Stadium will close for 18 months.
But when it returns as the university’s Class of 2027 prepares to graduate, the Hilton Garden Inn in Laramie will have rebranded itself as the UW-themed Graduate by Hilton Laramie, a whimsical rework and upgrade of the campus hotel.
The Pulte Family Charitable Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to supporting humanitarian works worldwide, owns the hotel and is reimagining the property as an over-the-top UW utopia.
It’ll have a western theme and UW’s signature brown and gold, and will become one of three of Pulte’s “humanitarian hotels.”
Foundation Chief Operating Officer Kevin Doyle said the segue from Hilton Garden Inn to a more upscale hotel tailored to UW, Laramie and Wyoming culture will bring “huge benefits” to Laramie and Wyoming.
“It’s going to create a place that will be a real hub for alumni and a boost for local culture, and hopefully just a real cornerstone for the university and the community itself,” he said. “It will make for a more attractive offering for people that are deciding whether, ‘Do I want to have my event in Casper or Fort Collins or Cheyenne?’ And they will want to be at this particular location.”
What’s A ‘Grad Hotel?’
The Graduate Hotel brand was acquired by Hilton in 2024 and has 35 locations across the United States in college towns, and two in the United Kingdom.
Each hotel is a distinct destination with a vibe that clearly identifies its ties to the local institution.
In State College, Pennsylvania, the hotel that celebrates Penn State University is decorated in plaids and checkerboards. It has a conference room that resembles the library in the “Clue” board game with books and overstuffed chairs and a long conference table.
The Graduate by Hilton Annapolis, Maryland, not far from the U.S. Naval Academy, features rooms and decor that reflect the sea and Navy’s maritime tradition with brick walls. There also are a lot of paintings and photos of bearded seamen with caps and hats, lighthouses and driftwood lamps laden with seashells.
The Graduate Hotel in Eugene, Oregon, home to the University of Oregon, features a huge yellow duck in the lobby and a historic display of Nike shoes, paying homage to the manufacturer’s headquarters up the highway in Beaverton, Oregon.
What the Laramie hotel will look like is still a work in progress, officials say.
The Pulte Family Charitable Foundation’s link to the Laramie hotel goes back to foundation founder Bill Pulte, who co-owned the property when the Hilton Garden Inn was built and opened in 2008.
When Pulte died in 2018, Doyle said the foundation inherited Pulte’s stake and needed to make a decision about selling its equity in the property or “doubling down.”
The foundation decided to put down stronger roots in the community and bought the property outright in 2023. The foundation’s hotel operates on a long-term land lease agreement with the university, and it is connected to the UW Conference Center.
Humanitarian Hotel
As one of the foundation’s three humanitarian hotels, profits from the facility go to the foundation’s targeted worldwide mission derived from the biblical mandate to “feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, care for captives, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and assist the mourning.”
The foundation has invested $170 million in charitable causes since 2019, Doyle said, adding, “That’s what our foundation exists to do.”
In Laramie, Doyle said the foundation has worked on three fronts by providing scholarships for university students, grants for veteran’s services, food programs and more.
Foundation grants in the past have benefited the Wyoming Hunger Initiative, Laramie SAFE Project and Laramie Interfaith. He said charity efforts will become more visible in the near future.
The foundation’s three humanitarian hotels — the Inn at Stonecliffe on Mackinac Island and St. John’s Resort in Plymouth, Michigan, and in Laramie — also all provide programming to help developmentally disabled people find meaningful employment opportunities.
In Laramie, the foundation partners with Ark Regional Services for that.
Doyle said when he first met with then-University of Wyoming President Ed Seidel a few years ago, he pledged to work with the university to make it place where students could be trained in the hospitality industry.
UW Hospitality Program
Dan McCoy, UW director of the Jay Kemmerer WORTH Institute, which includes the hospitality program, said the upgraded hotel will mean more opportunities for hospitality students.
Students from the program already have been doing internships at the Hilton Garden Inn property.
“We’ve got a great relationship with the Pulte Family Foundation,” he said. “They have been very generous in funding transformational student scholarships for internships all across the state.”
For instance, if a student has an internship opportunity in Jackson and can’t afford the housing costs during his or her stay in that city, the foundation has provided a scholarship to make that happen. McCoy said the foundation also backed a hospitality innovation challenge that occurred in the spring.
“It was a competition, and we gave away $20,000 to students who were involved in that competition,” he said. “It was funded by the Pulte Family Foundation.”
The foundation also has been generous in funding scholarships for students in the construction management program at the university, McCoy said.
Doyle said the hotel has a strong team and provides excellent service, but the upgrade will add quality to the facility and possibly a few more jobs. He declined to say how much of an investment the foundation is making in the upgrade.
Plans call for much of the 131-room structure to be gutted “down to the core” and renovated in ways that reflect its western university town setting. He said Hilton’s Graduate Hotel brand standards allow for more local flavor in the design, decorations, and type of furniture.
“The essence of the brand is to be the spoke of the town. There are certain defining characteristics that make a Graduate Hotel, and we have to follow along with that,” he said. “We are working with Hilton on the design and there is a lot more latitude and encouragement to be custom to the place.”
Storied Design
The design, which is just starting, will work in “stories unique to the university in custom ways,” he said. The university colors will be incorporated into the structure and talks have already taken place with UW about its brand standards.
The exterior will be brown, potentially with a mural, and “will feel like it fits in with the location,” Doyle said. The goal of the interior is to ensure it reflects the “spirit of the West” and the facility will project the “mantra that the world needs more cowboys.”
Choice of fabrics, drapery and wooden furniture deployed all will reflect a western culture.
Photos, art, and other items reflecting the community will be incorporated into the lobby and the hotel’s restaurant will get an extensive renovation to make it more a part of the community “so there is a kind of storytelling about the place it is in,” he said.
Changes to the hotel’s pool and fitness center are still part of discussions, but both will remain, Doyle said. He said the pool area will definitely get an upgrade.
“This hotel has been there for almost 20 years or so and it’s a real anchor point for the town and the university,” Doyle said. “It sits right on the plaza. We felt both as owners and partners to the university it’s the perfect location for a more elevated hotel product.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
