Ahwahnee Fire and Life Safety Renovations

Sometimes there are great perks to my job.

I got to go on a tour of The Ahwahnee Hotel while the building is temporarily closed for renovations, and see first hand some of the amazing work that is being done there. There is so much going on! The whole place is buzzing with purposeful activity as teams of people are working on getting the renovations completed before the the hotel re-opens.

We have to be very careful of what is said about the project, because the PR people are watching everything like hawks, but I can honestly say that I was impressed by the amount of work being done, the attention to detail, and as they’re starting to reassemble various rooms, a very promising finished product. (Sorry for the lack of pictures, I don’t know which of them are approved.)

I can’t wait to see what it will look like when the tools are stowed, and the doors re-open in just over a week! It’s amazing how much will be accomplished in such a short time – so many different contractors working in parallel, trying to keep every aspect of the project moving forward in concert without getting in each others way. A very big round of applause should go out to the folks that are managing it! Some things will probably be obvious to the casual observer, like the remodeled public bathrooms. But there is also a ton of stuff going on behind the scenes, things like replacing ancient wiring, fixing leaky pipes, and adding unobtrusive fire alarm systems. And then there are all the environmental decisions (recycling and reusing carpet) and historic decisions (getting the original light fixture manufacturers to return to rehabilitate and refinish the dining room chandeliers, or preserving stenciling) that I hope will make the rounds as full stories in their own time.

I’ve always been more interested in stories of the natural Yosemite outside the doors of buildings, rather than inside, but these are times when the unique history of the building itself really comes to the fore, and walking through, I was struck with the feeling that we aren’t just observing history from the high and mighty seat of the present, but also actively participating in the ongoing story of that place.