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Restoration of
the Historic National Hotel, B&B |
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In August of 1974, The National Hotel was purchased by
Stephen Willey, his brother, Michel Willey, and a friend,
Donald
Hazelwood. While the bar and hotel had functioned continuously
from its beginning, the restaurant was not open, and had
not been fully utilized since 1946. Requirements by the State
ABC department and the local health department, as well as
the building department, made it imperative that the kitchen
be gutted, and the dining room totally restored. Thus began
the slow process of restoration. With limited funds, and
thus providing the labor themselves, the restaurant was reopened
in September 1975, with an emphasis on Italian family style
dining. By October 1976 the operation was expanded to include
lunches.
•At that time, the hotel had 12 rooms, some of which were
occupied by monthly tenants at the favorable rate of $60
per month, which included utilities and twice weekly housekeeping
service.
•By 1978, restoration had begun
on the hotel rooms, although
only 2-3 rooms were worked on at a time. This restoration
included: plumbing, carpentry, electrical, insulation,
soundproofing, drywall, wallpaper and carpeting. When
the rooms were finished by 1980, the hotel included 11
rooms,
of which 6 had private baths and 5 shared two bathrooms.
Each of these five rooms had basins in their rooms. At
this time, the National Hotel began operating as a bed
and breakfast hotel, although the continental breakfast
initially left a little to be desired. By the 1990's,
it was evident that “shared baths” were no
longer in “vogue”. It was decided to reduce
the number of rooms to 9, and add bathrooms to each of
the remaining rooms.
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• By the mid-1980's, it was
decided to rebuild the front balcony of the National
Hotel. Old photos were consulted and renderings
made. Finally, blue prints were taken to a redwood
mill near the town of Mendicino, from which all the
materials were constructed and shipped to Jamestown.
It took approximately two weeks for the contractors
to reconstruct the balcony. Over the next several
years, redwood, kiln-dried ship-lap siding was applied
to
the front
and then the patio
side of the hotel. Eventually, Anderson windows were
brought in, as well as a number of other improvements
that helped to conserve energy, at the same time,
maintaining the historic ambiance of the hotel.
•By the mid-1990's, it was decided to
rebuild the bar floor and the bar and dining room front
entrances. Therefore, in the middle of Winter, the
entire first floor of the front was ripped out, bar
floor pulled up, and all rebuilt with in two weeks,
by a speedy and very competent crew.
•During the years of 2000-2005, most
of the restoration work, which is generally done in
the winter, was concentrated in the two dining rooms
and the bar. Take a look at the brass coated ceiling
in the bar, if you have the chance. Current wallpaper,
carpeting, ambient lighting, etc., was a result of
this work.
•Much work is yet to be done, and includes:
completion of fire sprinkler systems, making all that
we can, to be more ADA compliant and future work on
lower floor bathrooms.
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