The Lightwell Hotel just opened, but already it’s poised to become a hub of tourism in the Columbia River Gorge.
Built in a historic building in downtown Hood River, the 69-room boutique hotel offers tourists a wealth of comforts packed between its rooftop deck and its stone-walled underground soaking pool.
“We went probably a little overboard on the amenities,” co-owner Gabe Genauer said. “Usually a 69-room hotel wouldn’t have four food and beverage outlets and a spa.”
The hotel required three years of restoration and construction, including work to reinforce the building with structural and seismic upgrades, and to restore key original architectural details.
New design elements harken back to the historic hotels, both physically and in spirit: Original oak wood floors were repurposed as decorative wall panels in the restaurant, and the rooftop bar features a wooden trellis modeled after the original one.
Genauer declined to say how much money was invested into the new hotel.
While the building, which has a foundation first laid in 1904, was originally a hotel (first the Hotel Waucoma, then the Oregon Hotel), it hadn’t been used in that capacity since 1973. Most recently, the building was used as a yoga studio and winery, as well as the River City Saloon, a watering hole beloved by locals and Mount Hood skiers for decades.
What used to be the saloon is now a hotel bar called The Bob (after previous building owner Bob Carnahan), in an open space that includes a restored hotel lobby. Next door to the bar is a separate storefront that the hotel operates as Basecamp Café & Provisions, a coffee shop that sells pastries and grab-and-go food.
A hotel restaurant, called Alia, is expected to open in the spring, along with a rooftop bar that will serve a pared-down version of the menu, Genauer said.
There is a strategy to all the amenities, and it’s one familiar to other boutique hotels operating in Oregon’s tourist towns: attract locals as well as tourists, especially in the off-season. The Lightwell Hotel’s goal is to become “Hood River’s living room,” Genauer said.
“We wanted to create another place where the local people could come together,” he said. “We did not want to implant something into this community that wasn’t for the community.”
That includes the underground spa, open to guests as well as the general public, where a hot soaking pool has been built beside the enormous basalt rock wall that makes up the building’s original foundation. The hotel also offers a dry sauna and treatment rooms that will eventually house massage therapists, Genauer said.
“We just figured how can you beat — after you’re out knocking your brains out on the mountain or on the river — a soak or a sauna,” he said. “We really wanted to have the restorative part of what we could offer.”
And then there are the rooms themselves. The 44 king bedrooms and 25 queen rooms offer modern amenities with some historical touches — brand new beds pushed up against exposed brick walls, for example. Nightly rates currently start at $129, but vary by season and day of the week. Genauer said he expects rooms to average around $200 a night throughout the year.
That puts the Lightwell on par with most of other large area hotels, such as the Columbia Gorge Hotel & Spa and the neighboring Hood River Hotel. What the Lightwell has going for it is a prime location, just off Interstate 84 in the heart of town, as well as all those amenities.
Genauer is optimistic that travelers, and locals, will feel at home.
“As time goes on, I’m sure we’ll get more and more integrated,” he said. “That’s really important to us, that it really be a part of the fabric of Hood River.”
The Lightwell Hotel is hoping to become ‘Hood River’s living room’
