Hotel Fortney: Painting a Piece of Viroqua History
Some buildings just have something about them.
Hotel Fortney has always been one of those buildings for me.
When I first moved to Viroqua, the Fortney was old, tired and noticeably run down. It had the feeling of a place that had once mattered a great deal but had slowly faded into the background.
And yet I could never quite ignore it.
Built in 1899, it had that unmistakable turn-of-the-century character that has always fascinated me. There’s something about that period that seems to hit me on some deeper frequency—Van Gogh, Matisse, Fauvism, old architecture… and, apparently, wandering around the American frontier in Red Dead Redemption 2.
The Fortney had that same pull.
Even when the building was rough around the edges, I could see what it had been and what it might become again.
And eventually, somebody else saw it too.
The History of Hotel Fortney
The corner of Main and Court Streets has been welcoming travelers for far longer than Hotel Fortney itself has existed.
The North Star Hotel was built on the site in 1850. It was replaced in 1874 by another hotel, the Tremont House. In 1898, the Tremont House was moved farther north on Main Street to make way for a much grander building. The following year, Torger Fortney built Hotel Fortney on the corner.
Designed by the La Crosse architectural firm of Schick & Stolze, the three-story red-brick hotel was built in the Queen Anne style. Its prominent corner bay and polygonal oriel windows made it one of the most distinctive buildings in downtown Viroqua—and more than 125 years later, they still do.
For a small Wisconsin town, the original Fortney was an impressive place.
The lobby featured stained-glass windows, 12-foot tin ceilings and oak floors. A reading room had its own fireplace, while an open staircase climbed through three stories. Guest rooms had electricity, electric call bells, sinks and large windows, with hot and cold water and bathing facilities available on each floor.
A surviving postcard from 1907 shows Hotel Fortney standing proudly on the corner with a horse-drawn stagecoach parked outside—a wonderful glimpse of Main Street Viroqua at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Over the decades, however, the building gradually deteriorated.
By the time I knew it, the Fortney felt almost abandoned.
And that affected more than just the building.
There was a slightly neglected feeling around that end of Main Street too. The Fortney occupies such a prominent corner that when the building looked forgotten, the street around it somehow seemed forgotten as well.
Then came the restoration.
The Rebirth of Hotel Fortney
The Wrobel family purchased Hotel Fortney in 2020 after Brian Wrobel had first toured the property several years earlier and become fascinated with the idea of bringing it back to life.
This wasn’t a cosmetic renovation.
Parts of the structure were in serious condition and went through considerable renovation. I became slightly obsessed with watching it happen.
Every time I went through town, I wanted to know what they were doing next. What had disappeared beneath scaffolding since the last time I looked?
I studied that building over and over again through photographs, sketches and simply walking past it.
Eventually, I realized I wanted to paint it before the transformation was finished.
Not afterwards, during it.
Original 16 x 20 Oil on Canvas
Signed Certificate of Authenticity
Ready to hang
Painted March 2021
The Renovation of the Historic Fortney is a 16x20 oil painting capturing the spirit of rebirth for one of Viroqua’s most iconic architectural gems. Painted in March 2021, this piece commemorates a long-overdue transformation of the Fortney Hotel—a once-fading beauty brought back to life.
The Fortney, standing proudly on Main Street since the late 1800s, has always had presence. During this period of major restoration, I found myself returning to it again and again in my work. Its tall windows, worn façade, and complex geometry were like a challenge—one that invited me to celebrate both what it was and what it was becoming.
This particular painting shows the Fortney mid-transition, framed in loose brushwork and bold, Fauvist-inspired color. The peachy, sun-bleached walls contrast sharply with cerulean shadows and a vibrant spring sky. I leaned heavily into the influence of artists like Henri Manguin and Albert Marquet—letting contrast and movement tell the story as much as form.
There's something poetic about renovation—peeling away the old, reimagining the bones, letting light in where dust once lived. This piece is a small love letter to that process, and to the way buildings (like people) can be restored with care, purpose, and a new coat of paint.
Whether you're from the Driftless area or just someone who appreciates the layers of history in small towns, The Renovation of the Historic Fortney captures a moment of hopeful transformation.
Want a print instead? You can find prints of this piece here: The Renovation of the Historic Fortney
The Renovation of the Historic Fortney
When I painted The Renovation of the Historic Fortney, the building was halfway between its old life and its new one.
Part of the exterior still carried its old orange-pink color while another section had already been transformed into the bright cream-white façade we recognize today.
That contrast was exactly what interested me.
I wasn’t simply painting a building, I was painting a moment of transition. This was its rebirth.
Artists aren’t only making pictures. At our best, we’re storytellers. Sometimes we’re also accidental historians.
I knew this version of Hotel Fortney wouldn’t exist for very long. Soon the painters would move on, the scaffolding would disappear and the entire façade would belong to the next chapter of the building’s life.
So I wanted to record it.
The perspective in the painting remains one of my favorite things about it. It’s essentially the view you get walking down Main Street toward the Fortney: the corner façade standing proudly ahead of you, a little crooked with more than a century of age, sunlight hitting the building while the remaining orange section pushes against a huge blue Wisconsin sky.
I was watching something happen to a place I cared about, and painting was how I responded to it.
Hotel Fortney Today
The transformation didn’t merely restore an old building.
It helped bring that corner of downtown Viroqua back to life.
Today, Hotel Fortney is once again operating as a hotel, with 14 individually appointed rooms inside the restored historic building. The old architecture has been paired with modern amenities, while the hotel also includes guest spaces and a sauna and relaxation area.
But one of my favorite parts of the restoration is downstairs.
The original hotel lobby is now the Hotel Fortney Lounge.
And the owners didn’t strip away the building’s past. They leaned into it.
Original tin ceilings remain. Stained glass has been restored. Hotel-room doors from the upper floors have been repurposed as tabletops. Even the original Hotel Fortney front desk was restored and now serves as the lounge bar.
We’ve had drinks and food there, and the atmosphere is exactly what I want from a historic building: cozy and modern without pretending the past never happened.
Huge enlargements of old photographs of the Fortney hang throughout the space. You can sit inside the modern hotel while looking at photographs of the same building more than a century ago.
I love that.
It tells me the owners aren’t merely interested in owning an old building.
They care about its story.
And the redevelopment has spilled beyond the hotel itself.
Original 11 x 14 Oil on Canvas
Signed Certificate of Authenticity
Ready to hang
Painted November 2021
At Main and Court Street is an 11×14″ oil painting capturing a familiar corner in Viroqua, Wisconsin—specifically the historic Fortney Hotel after its recent renovation. Once coated in faded pink, the building now glows with fresh cream paint. And when the sunlight hits it just right, it transforms the entire street below.
That bounce of sunlight off brick and stone caught my attention one afternoon and held it. There’s something deeply symbolic in that—how light finds old surfaces and makes them feel new again. It’s part of what drew me to paint this scene. Restoration is more than cosmetic. It’s a kind of resurrection.
The painting leans into that warmth. Bright mid-day light reflects across the architecture, casting long shadows across the sidewalk and storefronts. The brushwork is intentional but expressive, capturing the texture of old brick and the way the city’s past and present meet on that one little corner. The color palette balances light neutrals with soft reds, hints of cobalt, and warm reflected tones.
It’s a painting about history, change, and those quiet moments when something old catches the light and reminds you it still has something to offer.
Want a print instead? You can find prints of this piece here: At Main & Court Street, Viroqua, Wisconsin
Noble Rind Cheese Company
One of the businesses now living in the restored Hotel Fortney building is Noble Rind Cheese Company, with its own entrance on West Court Street.
Noble Rind specializes in artisan cheese and charcuterie, along with sandwiches, small plates and other locally minded food. Its cheese and charcuterie offerings also appear on the Hotel Fortney Lounge menu.
Visit Noble Rind Cheese Company
It was a clever approach to redevelopment: rather than treating the Fortney as one isolated hotel, the restoration created first-floor spaces where other local businesses could become part of the building’s next chapter.
Driftless Cafe
Then, just a little farther down Court Street, is one of my favorite restaurants: Driftless Cafe.
The Cafe has become one of Viroqua’s best-known restaurants, built around the farms, producers and seasonal ingredients of the Driftless Region. Its menu is constantly changing according to what is available locally.
And here’s where the history becomes particularly interesting.
The building complex now occupied by Driftless Cafe has its own connection to Hotel Fortney.
The Wisconsin Historical Society identifies 118 West Court Street as part of a larger stone livery and carriage barn, built around 1896 and long associated with Hotel Fortney. The Vernon County Historical Society notes that people coming into Viroqua to shop or stay at the neighboring hotel could stable their horses there.
More than a century later, the connection continues in a completely different form.
The Hotel Fortney Lounge now serves food from both Noble Rind and Driftless Cafe, including Driftless Cafe’s hand-tossed pizzas.
When we’ve eaten there, those pizzas have made their way from Driftless Cafe down the street to the Fortney, where the hotel staff brings them to your table.
It’s such a wonderfully Viroqua arrangement.
Three independent local businesses, historical spaces and a block of downtown feeding into one another, and yes, I painted that too.
This one was inspired by Van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night, but I wasn’t interested in copying that painting or dressing up Viroqua like southern France.
I wanted to take that same idea — a café glowing against a deep blue night — and run it through my own world. So this became the Driftless Cafe at night, painted from memory and photo reference, with the storefront lit up, the boardwalk stretching out, and the whole street carrying that familiar small-town quiet after dark.
That’s what I liked about the scene. It felt calm, but not dead. Warm, but not cosy in a fake way. Just the kind of place that looks different once the sun goes down and the lights start doing the work.
This original has already sold, but prints are available.
Want a print instead? You can find prints of this piece here:
Driftless Cafe at Night
Painting details
Painting Size: 16 x 20 inches
Medium: Oil on canvas
Date Painted: April 2019
Availability: Original sold / not for sale
Prints: Available through INPRNT
Driftless Cafe at Night
Driftless Cafe at Night was directly inspired by one of my favorite paintings: Vincent van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night.
But I wasn’t interested in recreating Arles, I wanted Viroqua.
The warm windows of the Cafe glowing against the darkness. The street. The architecture. The little pocket of life happening inside.
And tucked into the distance at the end of the street is Hotel Fortney.
The two places have been connected for more than a century—first through the Fortney’s livery and carriage-barn operations, and today through the businesses occupying that little stretch of Court Street.
The history is still there, it just changed shape.
The Van Gogh of Vernon County
I sometimes jokingly describe what I’m trying to become as “the Van Gogh of Vernon County.”
There’s obviously some tongue firmly planted in cheek there. I’m not suggesting historians are preparing an entire wing of the Musée d’Orsay for my paintings of Wisconsin biker bars.
Although I’m prepared to take their call… 🤙
What I mean is that Van Gogh gives me a kind of compass.
Van Gogh painted The Yellow House, The Night Café, The Church at Auvers, and Cafe Terrace at Night.
These weren’t the Seven Wonders of the World, they were ordinary places made extraordinary because an artist paid attention to them.
That’s what interests me about painting Vernon County.
The Eiffel Tower, Times Square, The Statue of Liberty, and The Leaning Tower of Pisa have all been painted. And honestly? I’m a little bored by them.
Give me the biker bar beside the highway, the old hotel at the end of Main Street, the local cafe glowing on a cold Wisconsin night, and the buildings that never appear on mass-produced canvas prints stacked in the home-decor aisle at Target.
Those are the places I want to paint.
I want somebody from Viroqua to look at one of my paintings and immediately recognize their own world. Maybe they drove past that building every morning on the way to work. Maybe they had dinner there. Maybe they remember what it looked like before the renovation.
That’s where painting starts to become something else.
Looking back through my work, I’m beginning to see my paintings much the same way I see my photographs. They’re a record.
They’re a record of the places I went, the things I noticed, the buildings that made me stop, the streets I walked down and the little pieces of the world that stayed with me long enough that I felt compelled to paint them.
Hotel Fortney is one of those places.
