History of the Hotel

The Everglades Hotel was built in 1976 and at that time was privately owned by a  Mr Vincent Armstrong. Mr Armstrong also owned CVA Road Freight in Derry who worked largely for Desmond's of Derry and Marks and Spencers across Northern Ireland.

The design of the hotel was a long low building as it was located between two main roads on the Waterside side of the city - the residential Prehen Road and the busy Derry to Strabane road. The architects were McCormick, Tracey and Mullarkey from Derry. The architects did try to persuade Mr Armstrong to build the hotel on the City side as there was no hotel there at the time, but he decided to go with this marshy piece of land as he lived nearby.

The hotel was named the Everglades and some of the terminology for the rooms and suites in the hotel were names associate with the Everglades in Florida. Inspiration was also taken from Alistair Cook's 'letters from America'. The first General Manager was John Herlihy who managed the hotel until 1980.  The Hastings Hotels Group purchased and took over the hotel in 1990, and following several refurbishment programmes, the hotel has gone from strength to strength, to be one of the leading 4 star hotels in the North West of Ireland.