Paradise Inn reopens Friday after a 31-month renovation – much of which won’t be noticeable to visitors
Published: May 11th, 2008 02:00 AM | Updated: May 9th, 2008 04:03 PM
The $22.5 million work on the historic inn in Mount Rainier National Park , which closed the facility in October 2005, was necessary to strengthen the building against earthquakes, improve safety systems and help the grande dame withstand another 91 winters – so most of the construction was underground and behind walls.
Still, while shoring up crumbling foundations and strengthening supports, construction crews did return some of the inn’s historic luster. Visitors will see a new facade on the gift shop and fir flooring in the lobby and the dining room. The handcrafted furniture pieces, including the 14-foot grandfather clock and the restored vintage piano, are still in their customary locations in the lobby.
“We have something worth protecting here,” said Ellen Gage, the park’s historic architect. “We’ve done more preservation, but we looked for opportunities to do restoration.”
But budget overruns forced park officials to delay work on the Annex, which means no changes in the majority of the guest rooms.
As park management and Watts-Korsmo Joint Venture, the lead contractor, negotiated the final contract they realized that the work on the inn would cost about $5 million more than expected. That money was intended for work on the Annex, said park superintendent Dave Uberuaga.
“There were 250 to 300 items – such as the types of drainage around the building, types of heating systems, types of rock walls to be used – that we discussed,” Uberuaga said of the negotiations. “That’s when we decided not to proceed with work on the Annex.”
The retrofit of the Annex, housing 114 of the inn’s 121 guest rooms, could begin as soon 2013 if Congress approves the park’s budget request.
Congressman Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, will look to see if the Annex can be moved up in the line of National Park Service projects awaiting funding, said George Behan, Dicks’ chief of staff.
“There may be a chance to move it up in the queue. Norm has been working with the current Secretary (of Interior) Dirk Kempthorne and he has been supportive.”
UNFORESEEN CHALLENGES
About 150 construction workers spent more than 30 months battling snow, avalanches, rain, floods, wind and cold to revitalize the inn.
“The challenges up here were incredible. You could go anywhere west of the Mississippi and not find a job like this,” said Ken Hardy of Tacoma , general foreman for Watts-Korsmo.
Crews knew they would face extreme conditions working at an elevation of 5,400 feet. But they couldn’t predict a historic flood, above-average snowfall and unusually extreme winds.
Since the inn closed, more than 2,200 inches of snow have fallen at Paradise . Avalanches closed the road to the inn for two weeks in February. Paradise averages about 630 inches of snow a season.
“I grew up here, but I didn’t realize how much snow they get up here at Paradise ,” said Ron Case of Rochester , a painter for subcontractor Todd Robinson Painting Inc. of Tumwater.
“I worked on Bill Gates’ house several years ago,” Case said. “That’s the last (project) I worked on that was this challenging. But that’s what was fun about this job, it was something different every day.”
In November 2006, 17.9 inches of rain fell in 36 hours, flooding every corner of the park. Trails and campsites were washed away, and roads were cut by rivers and landslides. All told, $36 million in damage was done to the park. Crews’ access to the inn was restricted for six weeks and it slowed them down for four months.
“Early on we could get to the Community Building , hike over the bridge and then drive stranded National Park Service vehicles up to Paradise ,” said Jeff Robison, project manager for Watts-Korsmo.
Some days during the 2-year project, the temperature dipped to 5 degrees with winds at 40 mph, creating a wind chill of minus-22 degrees. In December 2006, winds reached 100 mph.
All the weather challenges delayed the project two weeks, but the construction crews encountered other unexpected developments.
Underneath the massive fireplaces and foundation, workers had to dig down to bedrock – 14 feet in some places – then pour in crushed rock to build the new foundation.
In the east wing, crews had to install additional steel beams to the ceilings and floors to stabilize them.
Painters needed to bring in propane heaters to get rooms warm enough to allow the wood finish to set.
“You open the walls and you find things no one knew existed,” Robison said.
PROTECTING, UTILIZING HISTORY
Determining how far back in time one goes to restore a historical structure isn’t an exact science.
“It’s professional judgment, on the part of a lot of people,” Uberuaga said. “What did the original craftsmen try to achieve and what is the best example of that for the longest time?”
Masons cleaned by hand each of the stones from the three massive fireplaces in the lobby and the dining room. For historic preservation, they weren’t allowed to remove the lichen that clung to the exterior stones. Above the fireplaces, striations of smoke left by decades of fires are still visible on the stones.
Carpenters used hand tools to re-create the mailboxes behind the reception desk.
Original entrance doors were discovered in the basement, and sidelights were found behind walls. Both features were incorporated into the restoration. That attention to detail was part of the effort to maintain the inn’s character.
“The idea fundamentally is to try and put everything back the way that it was. It’s a challenge to retain the historic fabric,” Uberuaga said. “It requires being sensitive to everything. We looked at the width and thickness of the shingles, how long they are, how far they overhang each other.”
The intent was to protect and, where possible, restore the historic look of the inn, which is why architects and engineers relied on historic photos as much as they did blueprints.
“Basically we’re mandated to protect the natural features, but also mandated to protect the historic structures,” said Eric Walkinshaw, park project manager.
What’s now the gift shop was a porch in 1917. The main entrance to the inn was in the corner between the gift shop and the back of the building. When the Annex was added in 1920, the main entrance was relocated.
“If we go back to the original intent, we would remove the gift shop, put the deck back there and reinstate the grand entry back there. That would be the purist version,” Walkinshaw said. “But we have to balance that with visitor enjoyment, and that includes the gift shop, the cafe.”
While much of the rehabilitation work is hidden by the floors and the walls, visitors will see a number of changes.
The most noticeable ones are in the gift shop and the cafe. The false roof that extended into the lobby is gone. Boxed clear fir beams run along the ceiling. The inn’s original doors now serve as an entrance on the shop’s west end. Carpenters added glass doors and windows.
“We were really guided by one historic photo. It showed before the snack bar was built. It showed light pouring in from that side of the building. We said, ‘What a difference having the light coming in from the east side,’” said Gage, the historic architect.
Other photos guided work on the reception desk, where carpenters rebuilt mailboxes and added architectural details.
“We had some pictures to work with. I had to use some hand tools to do some of the detail work,” said Jeff Baker of Shelton , a carpenter with Watts-Korsmo.
Workers built a portable saw to cut Alaskan yellow cedar logs used on the reception desk, the stairs and in the lobby.
“Many of the log shapes we needed to re-create we couldn’t do with drawings,” said Robison, the project manager. “We had to walk in the building, check it out, go outside and then kind of carve the log on the portable saw.”
A FEELING OF FAMILIARITY
Some of the inn’s quirky aspects remain intact. The balcony and its nooks, added after the inn’s original opening in the early 20th century, were kept. They’re a favorite place to enjoy a cup of coffee, play a board game or recap the day’s outdoor adventures.
In a corner of the dining room, hidden from diners but visible to employees, is a small closet used by busboys. Untouched by construction crews, names and messages from previous inn employees still cover the wall and the doors. Some signatures date to the early 1950s. One employee wrote: “Can I survive another year?”
Also visible is a caricature of the “Unknown Waiter,” who entertained guests during Saturday night talent shows in the 1970s.
“He came out with a bag on his head and he would sing. It was a good thing he had the bag. He was bad,” said Melinda Simpson, operations manager for Guest Services Inc.
The renovation also revealed a number of relics, including ski goggles from the ’20s and ’30s, cigarette and tobacco tins, a photo album and a copy of the Seattle Daily Times dated Sept. 11, 1927 . The headline read “City, State Honor Lindy Tuesday,” marking the pending arrival in Seattle of Charles Lindbergh aboard his Spirit of St. Louis.
Some of those items will be on display in the new visitor center being built nearby.
And the next time major work is done at Paradise, crews might find similar items. Many of the workers signed their names to a now-covered wall between the gift shop and the cafe.
Baker, the carpenter, left behind a hard hat and a vest in a space in the wall. Hardy, the Watts-Korsmo foreman, left behind his thoughts.
“I wrote a poem,” he said. “It took me a few nights to write it. But there’s this sense of pride being able to follow our grandfathers and the work they did.”
Those mementos reflect the sense of accomplishment among workers, Hardy said.
As workers such as Baker and Case were making the finishing touches in late April, Guest Services Inc. employees were racing to prepare the inn for the first guests, who are scheduled to arrive Friday. But the pressure of refurnishing the inn didn’t faze Simpson.
As dozens of workers carried in mirrors, mattresses, bed frames and dressers, Simpson’s smile lit up the lobby. She first worked at the inn in 1973, spending 18 years at the park. She returned in November to run Guest Services.
“It’s like coming home. I know the building, I know the furniture,” she said. “It’s a remarkable place. How do you not come in here and say ‘Wow?’”
Jeffrey P. Mayor: 253-597-8640; blogs.thenewstribune.com/adventure
