Historic Hood River
Hood River Hotel
4-1-2015
Notes
Here’s the 1913 Mt. Hood Hotel annex as it was in 1990. I didn’t realize frozen yogurt was popular then. The hotel had just been remodeled. The “New Yasui” building across 1st Street was still a parking lot next to the “Coffee Spot”. This streetscape was certainly improved by new streets and sidewalks, street trees, and quaint old-time lamps.
Melody Shellman
The Coffee Spot had most excellent sandwiches called Grinders. Sooooo good.
nels
A French Canadian came to town and saw the derelict hotel which had turned to senior retirement and then sort of a flop house and finally permanently locked down as unsafe for human habitation. But he saw it’s good bones and bought it. Then spent much money restoring it to it’s former self. And from there the whole street began to awaken from it’s slumber and became the anchor for the reawakening of the downtown. Hurrah for the Canadian with vision and money.
Pasquali Baronne (sp?)
Bill Seaton
I lived across the street from this hotel for 6 years in the 1940’s. At the time it was called the Mt. Hood Hotel and it was a nice hotel. In those days, the Hood River Hotel was on the corner of 2nd and Cascade, and it was kind of a flea-bag place.
nels
Maybe I have it wrong Bill. When I came here in the early 70’s it was closed down and it looked like such a grand dame of old times. But when he restored it, it seemed to give life to the many empty buildings – pharmacies, JCPenney, Mode O’Day, hardware store on south side, and banks. Our little town is famous now for it’s ambience, whether we like it or not. Just remember Baronne hiring guys who could match the wood, old to new. And then installing a quasi-spa down in the basement. Is it still there?
Arthur
This hotel was the Mt. Hood Hotel for most of its life, as Bill explained. The hotel at 2nd and Cascade was initially called "Hotel Waucoma," a name nominated by our friend Samuel Blythe in 1904. It was later called "Hotel Oregon", and then "Hood River Hotel", and apparently changed back to "Hotel Oregon" for a while after that.
Norma
I don’t know anything about A spa but in 2000 we had a HRHS class of ’59 reunion downstairs. The next year we held a Jubitz family reunion there. In the 50’s it was the Eagles club where they held dances for HRHS and Wyeast students every Monday night.
judy
I remember walking into the lobby of the old hotel. (60’s) It was a "blast from the past"! Potted ferns, old wallpaper the whole thing and it did not have a very nice smell.
Ellen
Were there parking meters in 1990? I don’t see any in the picture.
Jeffrey Bryant
Announcement in the February 23, 1910 Hood River News of plans for the new hotel:
http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83009939/1910-02-23/ed-1/seq-1/
Jacquie Barone
The hotel was remodeled by my husband and I after he bought it in 1989. It took a lot of work gathering all of the local talented craftsmen to completely redo the hotel from new fir lumber milled by Kreigs, individually redoing every window with their weights and pulleys, new bathrooms in all the rooms (there was only one bathroom per floor when we started), new plumbing and electrical throughout, rebooting the boiler and all of the radiators, getting the elevator back operating and so so much more. On December 15th ,1989 we opened with 26 rooms completed of the 41. It took us another 15 months to complete all of the rooms as well as the the conference room in the basement which had the boxing ring in it when he bought it. The spa and gym came later. That was all completely new construction as no spa was there prior. We also opened Pastabilities Deli and expanded the restaurant over the years and even ended up doing lots of off site catering. Cause in those days you did all you could do to keep the lights on. Some of you may remember you could shoot a cannon down the street and not hit anything it was so quiet. Just to clarify things, a lot of people thought Pasquale was some crazy french man but he was born and raised in southern Italy and moved to Canada as a 10 year old. The two of us met and lived in Vancouver, B.C. before embarking on the hotel. It is and will always be a wonderful chapter of our lives thanks to meeting so many amazing people from this community we now call home. We are continuing the restoration of downtown with the Union Building restoration project now and hope to make it another historic landmark thats come back to life and keeps the history of our community alive. Another note: the hotel was called the Mt Hood Hotel (you can see the original sign in the lobby) but we changed the name to Hood River Hotel because often our supplies coming from Portland would end up on Mt. Hood. That was also a time that not many people in Portland knew where Hood River was and the highway signs only showed The Dalles. How things have changed.