Foter Magazine – A Crop of International Hotels is Reviving History through New Design
BackA Crop of International Hotels is Reviving History through New Design.
These architectural marvels offer both an ode to the past and a celebration of the contemporary. From New Orleans to Paris to São Paulo to Rome, architects and hoteliers are reclaiming history through architecture. Whether in a former Brazilian maternity hospital, a Bahamian disco, or the American South’s largest power plant, each of these new hotels has a story to tell. After years of painstaking renovations, these unlikely settings have been transformed into magnificent properties welcoming curious travelers, presenting a love letter to legacy, and an invitation for new stories to unfold.
Russian logger Ivan Sesow opened this over a century ago as a speakeasy and roadside dance hall, which later welcomed such guests as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. In 2015, the property came up at auction and local family The Prins bought the seven-acre institution and revived it, piece by piece. “We wanted to keep as much of Seesaw’s as we could. Anything we found we just reused. Craftsmanship has always been a cornerstone of Seesaw’s, old and new,” said co-owner Kim Prins. The restaurant, Johnny Seesaw’s, once the dance hall, revived, even preserving the nostalgic mural and massive, round fireplace. The seven-guestroom Lodge was originally a ski warehouse; the Prins chose a different local wood for each guestroom. Three cabins on property are original.
