Hotel Bethlehem Earns No. 1 Historic Hotel Title for Sixth Straight Year (Update)

(Update: posted again due to technical issue)

Aug. 12, 2026

— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs

After Historic Hotel Bethlehem employee Nina Colanse revealed the hotels’ sixth straight USA Today #1 Best Historic Hotel in America honor on Wednesday, Managing Partner Bruce Haines credited the community for the award.

“That’s what makes us successful. That’s how we’ve been able to make this happen, because of you. First our team, then you” and partners including Historic Bethlehem Museum & Sites, St. Luke’s University Health Network and the Lehigh Valley IronPigs baseball team.

Later during the luncheon announcement Haines’ wife Jo Ann, who runs the hotel gift shop, focused on the staff.

“What gets us to No. 1 is what you do everyday,” she said. “We are humbled by how loyal you are to the Hotel Bethlehem.”

The hotel’s unprecedented run at the top of the standings places it above larger inns, some that are also resorts. Among the competitors: the Omni Bedford Springs in western Pennsylvania; The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee; Mohonk Mountain House near New Paltz, New York, and Congress Hall in Cape May, New Jersey.

“By getting this national attention from USA Today we’re able to market this special thing we have here to the whole United States and to the world,” Bruce Haines said.

That, in turn, promotes Main Street, Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley. Haines noted a trifecta of titles that have brought attention and people to the city.

UNESCO has recognized Bethlehem’s Moravian quarter as part of a World Heritage site, while the hotel has been running the table with USA Today recognition, and USA Today has also recognized Main Street as the #1 Main Street.

Haines noted the contributions of many to the city, including the late Ralph Schwarz, a Bethlehem Steel executive who helped preserve the city’s Moravian Heritage. Schwarz and others helped make Bethlehem Pennsylvania’s first Historic District, back in 1961.

After the #1 rank was announced, Haines asked Bethlehem resident Stephen Antalics, who at age 97 is nearly as old as the hotel, to lead the crowd of 100-plus guests and staff in a toast.

The Historic Hotel Bethlehem opened in 1922 on the site of the First House of Bethlehem (built in 1741) and later the Moravians’ Golden Eagle Hotel, opened in 1823. 

The hotel was built in an era when the tallest building in many towns was the hotel, an old-time marketing strategy aimed at motorists.

“The hotel was built to be the tallest building that captured people’s attention as they were driving through town,” Haines said.

Then the era of interstate highways allowed drivers to bypass towns and their hotels, leading to an era of cookie-cutter chains at highway exits.

Bethlehem Steel saved the hotel in the 1960s, Haines said.

“Hotels like this all were being shut down and turned into apartment buildings,” Haines said.

The hotel struggled in the 1990s.

In 1998 the hotel closed, casting a pall over the downtown. There was a plan to turn it into a combined senior residence and Moravian College dormitory for women.

That mix would have made for interesting elevator rides, Haines noted, but he came up with a better plan.

Haines, a Lehigh University graduate who spent 35 years at U.S. Steel, put together the team that bought the hotel in and made it the award-winner it is today. The investor group included seven Lehigh graduates and a few Lafayette College alumni.

The hotel overlooks Main Street, the Moravian industrial area and the Star of Bethlehem. At 134 rooms, it’s smaller than most of its USA Today competition. It still keeps winning.

Haines didn’t know much about running a hotel back in 1998 but he and others saw a building and tradition that was worth saving.

“Our objective was to keep it a community hotel,” he said, and 28 years later, he’s still at it.

He summed up the journey, his long career as an engineer followed by his second calling operating a hotel, in a sentence.

“You never know where life will lead you.”