Retracing Steve Zimmerman’s Path To La Colombe d’Or

The Houston Chronicle profiled luxury boutique hotel, restaurant and art gallery La Colombe d’Or owner Steve Zimmerman in their “Accidental Houstonian” series. Zimmerman was born in New York and came to Houston by way of Louisiana.

Zimmerman practiced law and worked a side job selling clothing upon moving to Houston in the early 1960s before volunteering to teach a law course at the University of St. Thomas free of charge. The latter was so Zimmerman could spend more time with a female student he’d met there and was a move that “jump-started the campus’s pre-law program” according to the Chronicle.

Eventually he ended up in real estate and the hospitality business, buying Montrose bungalows and turning them for a profit as well as opening Zimm’s Martini and Wine Bar. Zimmerman bought what is now La Colombe d’Or, a five-room upscale hotel, by the end of the 1970s and the rest — as they say — is a part of Montrose history.