It was easy to see she'd been beautiful once.
This hotel must have been beautiful once and it is better than I had expected my accommodations to be.
She had been beautiful once, but she was only old now.
Poverty may have been beautiful once, but it's rotten now.
She had been beautiful once, and would be still but for the meanness of her life.
Once beautiful, her face is "broken, with age and pain coming through the cracks."
The once beautiful Mall looked like a scene of a wild party the morning after.
She was once beautiful, but lost her beauty to smallpox.
He had the feeling that she'd been beautiful once.
Her face, once beautiful, had been eroded from within by pain and loss of weight.