Heritage springs back

The French Lick Springs Hotel.
The French Lick Springs Hotel.
The exterior of the West Baden Springs Hotel, set in park like surrounds.
The exterior of the West Baden Springs Hotel, set in park like surrounds.
The exterior of the West Baden Springs Hotel.
The exterior of the West Baden Springs Hotel.
The interior atrium of the West Baden Springs Hotel.
The interior atrium of the West Baden Springs Hotel.
Rocking chairs on the porch of the French Lick Springs Hotel.
Rocking chairs on the porch of the French Lick Springs Hotel.

There's more to southern Indiana than mineral water, writes Anabright Hay.

Two grand old spa hotels both alike in age and elegance in fair Indiana is where we lay our scene. No, this is not the beginning of a Shakespearean tragedy but it is a love story.

A love of historic buildings that led an Indiana medical devices billionaire, Bill Cook, to spend $US500million ($NZ770million) to renovate two of America's finest hotels to beyond their original splendour.

The French Lick Springs Hotel and the West Baden Springs Hotel, in rural southern Indiana, are only a mile apart. Both date from the first decade of the 20th century.

They are now part of the French Lick Resort owned by the Cook Group, based in Bloomington, Indiana, and thriving. Only a few years ago one was collapsing and abandoned, the other facing an uncertain future.

Long before I set foot in either of them I had been fascinated by their size, beauty and precarious history. My old postcard of West Baden Springs Hotel shows a huge domed interior atrium described as ''the eighth wonder of the world''.

Did it still exist? If so, I had to see it. So this is how I come to be standing at its entrance arch. Under the hotel's name another line reads the ''Carlsbad of America,'' a reference to one of Europe's great old spa destinations.

The European parallels continue, as West Baden Springs was named after Wiesbaden in Germany. My eyes ascend from the manicured gardens to the red exterior of the massive central dome, surrounded by four Moorish towers.

A circular fairytale castle, I enter it as if in a dream oblivious as to where the porter is taking my bags. Inside the atrium, and under the 61m spanned dome, my jaw drops and my eyes gaze upwards.

Others are similarly affected, pointing cameras or lying on conveniently placed chaise longes to stare in disbelief. This is exactly the response former owner Lee Sinclair wanted when he commissioned architect Harrison Albright to build it in 1901.

He wanted a large dome with no visible central support. Other architects said it was impossible. Albright achieved it through the use of large supporting columns placed in the circular walls. It was to be a place for hotel guests and visitors to chat, eat, drink, walk around or simply marvel.

My room overlooking the atrium has French doors opening on to a little balcony. Far below I can see people exploring. Some are on guided walks given by Indiana Landmarks, one of America's largest historic preservation groups.

Lee Sinclair's original dream for the hotel to be a magnet for celebrities, complete with an opera house, pony and bicycle track, was relatively short lived. In 1923 it was bought by local business bigwig Ed Ballard, at a time when southern Indiana was becoming a major gambling area.

The stock market crash of 1929 hit the hotel hard and closed it. Ballard sold it to the Jesuits for $1 in 1934 and they used it as a seminary for 30 years before Northwood Institute ran courses there from 1967 to 1983.

It then lay empty for 13 years, while the vines encircled it and some outer walls started to collapse. Indiana Landmarks then bought it in 1996 for $250,000 and approached Bill Cook and his wife Gayle for financial help to stabilise and partially restore it. After this work was done nobody wanted to buy it from Indiana Landmarks.

Chief Justice Randell Shepard of the Indiana Supreme Court in a tribute to the Cooks at the restored hotel's 2007 gala said all the developers just shook their heads.

It was awesome but too big, too deteriorated, too far from the interstate highway, too expensive to heat, hard to lease, with lots of small rooms and curved walls. Bill Cook saw it differently. He and Gayle were keen preservationists.

Neither of them were gamblers but he knew that if done tastefully, a casino next door at the French Lick Springs Hotel was the only way to save these two hotels. So the Cook Group bought both hotels in 2005 and, using historic photos and an army of local and overseas talent, restored and saved them.

Gambling alone was never going to be enough to draw people to such a remote location and neither were two astonishingly beautiful historic hotels in groomed grounds. But add to the mix luxury accommodation, championship golf courses, restaurants, swimming pools, spas and shops and Cook saw a means to an end.

The end was to save the hotels, now listed on America's historic register. Once the restoration expenses were paid off, nearly half the profits would go to a foundation for preservation and education in Indiana. Bright ideas abound here and always have.

Fresh air, walking trails, mineral water, dancebands and political meetings were the big historic drawcards. Regular rail links to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis and Cincinnati once brought thousands here.

The trains are long gone and I arrive by car from Louisville, Kentucky, in just over an hour.

A rocking chair and a Dixieland band cause me to pause for a while on the front porch of the French Lick Springs Hotel before exploring its gilded foyer. Mineral water was what really made this hotel's fame and fortune. French settlers had been among the first Europeans here. When they noticed that the animals liked to lick the mineral salts in the rocks they named the place French Lick.

My postcard of this hotel describes it as ''The home of Pluto Water''. This water was once bottled in large quantities and loaded on to trains at the French Lick railway station. It was a big seller. A slogan on the bottle says ''If nature won't Pluto will.''

I pass a cabinet in the hall with empty bottles of the famous elixir. From my room I have a lovely view of a little red roofed pagoda which housed the Pluto Spring.

The spring is plugged up and the area's mineral water is now used largely for bathing, rather than drinking. French Lick Springs Hotel is considerably larger than West Baden Springs Hotel, which once also produced medicinal mineral water.

Although it has had many owners since the former mayor of Indiana, Tom Taggart, bought it in 1901, French Lick Springs Hotel has been almost continuously open since then.

In its heyday in the early 20th century it hosted stars such as Bing Crosby, Groucho Marx, John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Lana Turner and Bob Hope. Several walls in its vast interior are hung with portraits of former guests.

Some younger members of the hotel tour I join would have to ask their grandparents who those stars were but everyone looks suitably impressed. We learn that it was here in 1917 that the famous chef Louis Perrin is said to have created and served tomato juice.

Sometimes I need my map to find my way back to my room in this hotel but it is a great place to get lost.

Nearly every wall in the corridors is covered in photos and postcards of former guests having fun. Some are in swimming costumes, others in ball gowns and plenty of hearty types swinging golf clubs. All are no doubt feeling particularly perky after sipping ''Pluto Water''.

I am feeling pretty sprightly myself as I follow the sound of the Dixieland band back to my rocking chair on the front porch. Suitably comfortable I raise my glass and drink to the many Indiana visionaries whose imagination and wealth made all this possible.

Anabright Hay, a Wellington based travel writer, paid for her own accommodation and travel in southern Indiana.

 

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