The Imperial Hotel was the newest and most elegant hotel in the Pier. It was built by Walter A. Nye c. 1899. Just a year before constructing the hotel, Nye moved the nearby Columbus Hotel (purchased by him in 1893 and soon thereafter enlarged) just behind the future site of the Imperial, thus merging the two hotels. In 1923 the Imperial was destroyed by fire.
(Information source: Latimer, Sallie W., “Images of Narragansett by the Sea,” 1997.)