By Lisbet Newton | Houston City Beat
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la Colombe d’Or
A family’s love of art and Houston history.
Dan Zimmerman has a suggestion for anyone looking at the artwork inside la Colombe d’Or: try guessing who chose it.
“Did Dan pick that or did Steve pick that?”
He offered the idea with a sense of humor, but the question tells you something about this Houston hotel. Dan and his late father, Steve Zimmerman, shared a love of art, though their tastes often took them in different directions. Both have left their mark on a place where a family’s interests have become part of the experience of walking through the doors.
Long before those doors welcomed hotel guests, they opened into the home of Walter W. Fondren’s family. Fondren was one of the founders of Humble Oil & Refining Company, and the mansion built for his family in 1923 reflected Houston’s growing prosperity. Texas architect Alfred C. Finn designed the house that still stands at 3410 Montrose Boulevard.
Before Steve Zimmerman welcomed guests into la Colombe d’Or, he was a young lawyer finding his way in Houston. Born in Brooklyn and raised in New Orleans, the Tulane Law School graduate moved here in 1964. He practiced and taught law before his interest in real estate drew him into Montrose, where he began buying properties and developing places for people to live and gather.
The Zimmerman family acquired the property in 1979. For Steve, turning it into la Colombe d’Or brought together things he had loved for years. The French Quarter had offered him an everyday experience of living, eating and gathering among historic buildings. His travels through Europe deepened that appreciation. He wanted to bring some of that feeling to Houston, creating a place where architecture, art and hospitality could be enjoyed together. Preserving the mansion became part of that work. It had no state landmark designation when the family purchased it, and Steve initiated the process to recognize its significance. In 1989, the Fondren Mansion became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Hospitality gave him a different kind of relationship with people. As Dan recalled to the Houston Chronicle, clients came to his father with problems when he practiced law. Steve wanted to create a place they could come to celebrate. Weddings, meals and family occasions became part of the life he built around the hotel.
That passion for bringing people together extended beyond the mansion. Steve served for many years as president of the Alliance Française de Houston, supporting French language and culture. His affection for France, art and hospitality found a home in la Colombe d’Or, where those interests could be shared with the people who walked through the doors.
Steve passed away in October 2025, but the hotel remains a place where his family’s work and his own interests continue to welcome people into Houston’s story.
Dan grew up surrounded by his family’s enthusiasm for art. He describes collecting as something that gets into your system.
“Some people are car people, or wine people, or watch people, and some people are art people,” he said.
He caught the bug, too. As he began collecting, he gravitated toward work different from the pieces his father favored. Today, their selections help give la Colombe d’Or its personality, with more than 425 works of art and sculpture displayed throughout the property.
That willingness to bring different ideas together also helped shape the hotel’s next chapter. A major restoration and expansion in 2021 paired the historic mansion with contemporary accommodations and an adjoining residential tower.
Guests now have three ways to stay, each with its own relationship to the property. Five suites occupy the mansion’s second floor, where restored parquet floors and woodwork preserve details of the original home. A garden passage leads to 18 contemporary hotel suites in the tower. One block behind the mansion, nine apartment-style garden bungalow suites surround a courtyard.
Together, they make up the hotel’s 32 suites. The adjoining 34-story tower also contains apartment residences, bringing people who call the property home into the same setting as those visiting Houston.
The additions have given the hotel new places to enjoy the city, including a tenth-floor pool overlooking downtown and a fitness facility. Gardens connect parts of the property, while Tonight & Tomorrow and Bar No. 3 welcome people into the mansion for meals and drinks. Meetings, private dinners and celebrations bring their own occasions through its doors.
For Dan, keeping buildings in use is central to preserving them. His work with historic properties on downtown Houston’s 100 block of Main Street follows that same interest in giving older spaces new purposes.
He calls it adaptive reuse: allowing a building to serve the needs of the present while keeping the character that connects it to the past. A former home can become a hotel. An older commercial building can welcome a new mix of businesses and people.
At la Colombe d’Or, that idea has been taking shape for decades. Steve saw an opportunity to preserve a piece of Houston’s history while creating a place for people to experience art and hospitality. Dan has carried that appreciation forward, bringing his own perspective to the property and to other historic buildings across the city.
More than a century after the Fondren family called this mansion home, its story is still being written. Today, guests walk through its doors for dinner, a night away or a celebration, adding their own memories to a place that has remained part of Houston’s changing landscape. la Colombe d’Or is a reminder that when we care for the places that came before us, they can continue to bring people together for generations to come.
To learn more about la Colombe d’Or, visit lacolombedor.com.
