Dom-Hotel Cologne – a Grand Hotel by the Cathedral in Transition

The square on the cathedral's west side – once the Domhof, renamed Roncalliplatz in 1971 – was long a marketplace with stalls and small booths. In the Middle Ages several buildings stood here, among them the "Kamphof" and the stone house "zum Palast." The Kamphof took its name from court-ordered duels that were held on the Domhof from 1169 onward and served as a kind of divine judgment when direct proof of guilt or innocence was lacking. Later the neighbouring houses hosted the printing works of the Quentell family; the house "zum Palast" can even be spotted in Anton Woensam's celebrated 1531 panorama of Cologne. Kamphof and Palast were pulled down before 1779.

On the site, a ballroom for winter concerts was built in 1779 – apart from the Gürzenich, the only larger hall of its kind in Cologne. It later became a wine tavern where Johann Peter Lempertz staged concerts as well as curiosities such as "glass people." In 1839 the hotelier and wine merchant Albert Harff acquired the property, and around 1840 the first guests could stay at the "Hôtel du Dôme." Harff hosted concerts, masked balls and carnival sessions – the new "Große Karnevalsgesellschaft" held its very first session here on 1 January 1842. On 3 March 1848, during the March Revolution, at least 500 Cologne democrats gathered in the "Saale Harff."

With the nearby main railway station (from 1859) and the Hohenzollern Bridge (from 1911), business flourished. During the German Empire, the Dom-Hotel – alongside the Excelsior Hotel Ernst on the other side of the cathedral – became the traditional address for Cologne's high society. Kaiser Wilhelm II stayed here several times, and in 1916 the dancer and spy Mata Hari used the hotel for an espionage meeting.

The city's darkest chapters also left their mark: in March 1944 the hotel director and regime critic Roland Metz was found hanged in the roof structure of the northern cupola.

In 2001 the Cologne real estate group Lammerting took a majority stake, and in 2010 the property passed to the Bayerische Versorgungskammer. From 2013 the old building was to be modernised and reopened as a five-star-plus hotel in the Althoff Hotel Collection; all staff were let go on 1 June 2013. During the renovation, however, extensive structural defects came to light, which ultimately led the owner to demolish all non-listed parts of the building.

Since 2019 the building has been stripped back to its listed façade and a historic staircase, with a completely new interior going up inside. The new hotel is to have 130 rooms and 18 suites, plus a two-level retail area on the ground floor and a sky bar in the newly added top floor. Because Roncalliplatz is closed to cars, arriving guests reach the hotel via the underground car park beneath the cathedral plaza. The reopening has been postponed several times and is currently planned for 2027 as the "Althoff Dom Hotel Köln," within the new Dom-Carré. So the Dom-Hotel is not a place that has vanished for good – rather a grand hotel in the midst of an extensive transition.