This article was first published in the May, 2019 issue of The Homesteader.
In 1905 Redmond consisted of a few tents, a land office, a proposed canal, a promised railroad, and a lot of enthusiasm for the future. That year William Wilson and Frances Clark, newly married in San Francisco, stopped in Redmond on their way back to Valdez, Alaska. They apparently liked Redmond’s prospects because they visited twice again before buying the Redmond Hotel in 1912 from N.M. Abbot. They left Alaska in 1915 with a “modest fortune” from mining, oil, and commercial interests, took over running the hotel, and settled in Redmond permanently.
The original Redmond Hotel, a wooden, two-story, 45-room building served a mixed clientele of pioneers, homesteaders, stockmen, lumbermen, businessmen, salesmen, cowboys, freighters, farmers, and families.
Like most pioneer towns, life in Redmond was rough and raucous. The law was lax and Mayor H.F. Jones ran a poker game in the back room of the Redmond Hotel prompting Reverend Crenshaw to call upon the authorities to end Jones’ game and other activities that elicited the good Reverend’s disapproval. In July of 1912, no less an authority than Governor Oswald West showed up and, advised the citizens of Redmond to “raise less hell and more hogs” or he would “By Golly” send the army to keep order. The next month there was a new mayor, a new Marshall, more order and, presumably, more hogs.
The old wooden hotel, having miraculously survived 21 years of town fires, finally succumbed June 28, 1927 in a spectacular conflagration that destroyed Redmond’s south-end business district. Before the ashes cooled the Wilsons began plans to rebuild. They told Redmond’s weekly newspaper The Spokesman that the new hotel would be the “very latest thing of its kind in all respects.”
The next weekend they spent in “valley cities looking for different types of buildings to replace their Redmond Hotel.” On August 11, The Spokesman reported that Hugh Thompson, well-known Bend architect, would have specifications ready for bidders by the next week and in November excavations started. On July 27, 1928 the New Redmond Hotel, in all its Georgian Revival, brick splendor held its grand opening.
Americans, after the frenzied exuberance of Victorian architecture, revived the restrained elegance of colonial Georgian. The New Redmond Hotel, an example of that revival, incorporated most aspects of Georgian architecture: brick facade, three stories, arched entrance of stone blocks and evenly spaced windows on each story. Unfortunately, the architect ignored the strict formula for window size and placement that gives Georgian architecture its elegant and the otherwise handsome façade, leaving the New Redmond Hotel with awkward fenestration.
Awkwardness aside, it was a modern and luxurious hotel. Frances and William celebrated their opening with a day of lavish banquets, bands, dances, and tours. The hotel had 55 guest rooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors. The eight residential apartments on the 3rd floor were each furnished with a “Jiffy-dine” combination library table and dining table, over-stuffed mohair davenport and chair, a “handsome” rug, a fold-up bed and a complete set of dishes.
The ground floor of the hotel had six stores with expansive glass display windows fronting onto Evergreen Avenue and 6th Street and an upscale coffee shop with white tablecloths and uniformed waitresses.
The lobby and banquet room had beautiful high-beamed ceilings and Corinthian capped pilasters. The lobby, furnished with comfortable leather chairs, featured a handsome stone-faced fireplace, an oversized Oriental-style carpet, a tall standing clock with New Redmond Hotel lettered on its face and an assortment of antiques.
The Spokesman, in a special “Progress Edition” (8/2/1928) praised the local contractors Oleson and Erickson saying, “The new hotel is a monument to good workmanship.” It was Redmond’s biggest and most imposing downtown building and everybody took great pride in it. It became the social center for Redmond and a welcome stopping place for the trickle of tourists beginning to discover Central Oregon. Room prices ranged from $1.00 to $2.50 per night.
The Wilsons ran the hotel until William “Billy” Wilson’s death in 1943. According to his obituary in The Spokesman, Billy led an adventurous life. He left home in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada at 14, worked in various hotels, joined the gold rush in Alaska, bought a trading post in Valdez, Alaska and, in 1905 on a boat ride out of Nome, Alaska, met and married Frances Clark. The newspaper mentioned his generosity, enthusiasm and great service to Redmond. Not mentioned and little known were his substantial loans to the city to keep it from bankruptcy during the Depression.
Almost no information is available about the hotel after Billy’s death. In 1980 The New Redmond Hotel was nominated by its owner Betty Jo Gungura, and was accepted into the National Register of Historic Places, opening up opportunities for grants and historic tax credits that assist with preservation of historic buildings. Unfortunately, the hotel had hit rock bottom. Ms. Gungura stated that it was home to a few elderly retirees but inhabited mostly by bums and alcoholics. In 1981 the Anderson Land and Cattle Company bought the hotel, put in a bar and restaurant and renovated some guest rooms. The next mention of the hotel is in 1987 when The Pennbrook Development Corporation bought it from Anderson. They planned major renovations. At that time it was still a working hotel but most of the rooms were apartments. By the mid 1990s, the New Redmond Hotel fell into foreclosure. In 2005, when it is owned by the Gonzaga family, it closes permanently and is unoccupied.
In 2018 Alpha Wave Investors LLC from California bought the hotel and, with a $1M loan from Redmond Urban Renewal, promise to spend $2.5M to create a boutique hotel with a roof garden. In October 2018 Alpha Wave found issues with the plumbing and wiring estimated to drive costs to $9M. On March 24, 2019 the city of Redmond came through with a $3.5M forgivable loan to Alpha Wave. The New Redmond Hotel is now a $11.8M project.
The usual tales of ghost sightings and moanings exist about the hotel, but it is an interesting building that needs no phantasmagoric enhancement. It is a well-built, well-loved part of Redmond’s history. Much of the hotel’s interior and exterior are intact. It is one of the last of Central Oregon’s Georgian Revival buildings and is worthy of its current renovation. Old buildings create interesting cities that attract visitors and residents. The city of Redmond has wisely preserved its original downtown buildings instead of blasting them to smithereens for parking lots, as have many cities to their eventual regret. As George Orwell said, “The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their understanding of their history.” So, celebrate Historic Preservation Month this May, save our old buildings, documents, and artifacts. Because in preservation is the understanding of who we are, individually and as a people, and why we belong here.
Since this article was first published, the hotel is under new management and is called SCP Redmond Hotel.