Jean Lafitte Lofts

 At the corner of 21st and Church Streets, the Jean Lafitte Lofts began life as the Jean Lafitte Hotel. Built in 1927 and designed by Galveston architect Andrew Fraser, the ten-story building brought a new kind of hotel to downtown: a high-rise designed for the business travelers arriving on the island. Its name honored Jean Lafitte, the privateer whose years in Galveston remain part of the island’s complicated history. 

 The hotel welcomed guests for decades before closing and standing vacant. A restoration completed in the 2010s gave the building a new purpose as apartments while preserving pieces of its past, including architectural details from the original hotel. Today, the Jean Lafitte Lofts offer a chance to live in a building that has been part of Galveston’s downtown skyline for nearly a century, just steps from The Strand and the heart of the historic district.