Three decades after Hotel Libby closed its doors, the iconic downtown landmark is set to reopen in 2017. The National Park Service recently listed the hotel on the National Register of Historic Places.
Hotel Libby will also be open to the public for the first time in 33 years on Oct. 31 for a special Halloween event. Project Director Gail Burger said the upcoming event is generating a lot of excitement in the community.
“When it first opened, it was billed as the grandest hotel from Spokane to the Dakotas,” Burger said. “We want to bring it back to that former glory.”
The hotel is now owned by Burger’s parents, Ron and Candy Johnson, who purchased it in the late 1970s. By the time their family moved into hotel, spending summers there when she was younger, it was a shadow of its former self. Construction began on the hotel in 1899, but two months later work stopped for winter. That winter work stoppage lasted a decade, until 1910, when someone purchased the skeleton and finished the project, according to local historian Jeff Gruber.
The hotel was an important place in Libby for the next few decades and even housed the town’s first bank. In the 1960s rooms were rented out by the month for people working on the nearby Libby Dam. The Johnson family purchased it in 1978.
For years the building has sat unused on California Avenue, but Burger caused quite a stir last summer when she arrived back in town to conduct some research about the building. After her visit, she began to put together the paperwork to get the hotel designated as a national historic landmark. The filing was 65 pages.
“The application itself took a year,” Burger said. “(But) with historical status it opens us up to grants.”
Earlier this summer, Burger announced her family’s plans to restore the hotel and reopen it within five years. Plans call for the building to be restored to its 1930s appearance.
Currently the hotel has 50 rooms, but Burger plans on reopening it with 23 rooms on the second and third floor, including a few handicap accessible rooms on the first floor. The rest of the first floor will include the lobby and, eventually, a dining room and restaurant. Each room will feature televisions and microwaves, all of which will be well hidden.
“It’s going to be a whole experience,” Burger said. “We’ll still have modern conveniences, but it won’t be in your face.”
Burger said there is a lot of “mystery” surrounding the historic building, some of these secrets will be revealed on Halloween, when the hotel is opened to the public for the first time in 33 years. On Wednesday, Oct. 31 from 7 to 9 p.m., the public will be welcome for an evening of trick or treating and games inside the old lobby. Burger said it’s one of the first steps toward the building’s restoration.
“We just want to bring the nostalgia back,” she said.