Washington and Oregon have a wonderful chain of restaurants/ bars/ billiard halls/ theatres/ conference venues/ concert venues/ hotels: McMenamin's. As the short version of the story goes, these two brothers decided they wanted to brew their own beer and redefine the pub. So, they started to buy up abandoned buildings like theatres, warehouses, schools that were often times historic but no longer being used to strengthen the community refurbished them to be multi-faceted community gathering places (but mainly breweries and pubs).The establishment that I visited today was called "The Kennedy School." The McMenamin brothers kept this small elementary school (built c. 1915) intact but transformed the rooms into bars, restaurants, conference rooms, hotel rooms, a gift shop, a soaking pool, a brewery, and a movie theatre.
As an architect and preservationist at heart, I walked around in awe of their accomplishment -- and this is just one of dozens of similar locations the brothers have refurbished. They have a corporate historian that researches each property they buy and their findings influence how they decorate and how they restore the property (so cool!). In this establishment they named the hotel rooms after the teachers who taught there.
I would have liked to do something similar for all of the abandoned roadside attractions like the S.S. Grand View Point. There was such magic around that structure that could have brought the place back to life with the correct amount of TLC.
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