When the hotel was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1983 it was one of the oldest continuously operated hotels in the state of Illinois. In 1988 the hotel closed and the building was left vacant and in a rapidly deteriorating state for ten years. In 1996 the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois listed the Nachusa House on its top-ten most endangered landmarks list. The hotel seemed destined to be demolished in 1997 when the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) and a Chicago developer stepped in to save the building, not as a hotel, but as affordable housing for senior citizens.