The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge is finally getting its $16 million dollar renovation.
Talk of a major facelift at Jasper’s luxury hotel has been circulating for years, but according to General Manager Markus Treppenhauer, those upgrades are finally underway.
They started in September, when the hotel closed 40 rooms for renovations. Those renos are still ongoing, and according to Treppenhauer 122 rooms will be added to the list starting right after the New Year’s rush, on Jan. 4.
“Our biggest priority right now is to get our rooms renovated,” he said Nov. 24, from a wingback chair in the hotel’s main lobby. “By the time the end of April will come, every guest room along the lake will be renovated.”
The last major renovation at JPL was in 2006, and Treppenhauer said guests have been expressing their desires for upgrades.
“What guests expect today versus what they expected 10 years ago is very different,” he said. “You almost have to guess what they will expect five or six years from now.”
He pointed out that 10 years ago people wouldn’t have expected to plug in their phone right next to the bed, but today they don’t want to have to move furniture to get access to an outlet.
To figure out how to accommodate guests’ shifting tastes, the hotel mocked up a model room before undertaking its renovations. It then renovated three rooms just to make sure the design worked. After some critique and changes, JPL finally began rolling out the design for the rest of their rooms.
The new rooms feature updated furniture and colour schemes, and boast a “more refined look” than the old ones.
But along with upgrades to their rooms, the hotel is also making significant changes to its common areas.
A glance around the hotel lobby reveals forest green plywood boxing off a main bar. Outside, orange tarps cover a large swath of area where the new hot tub is being installed. They are also in the process of rearranging their front desk setup and renovating the main lobby bathrooms.
These are just the first steps in the two-year renovation plan, and in 2016 they will sweep through the rest of the property, re-finishing most of the areas that facilitate guest experiences.
Treppenhauer said the fact that they are working with heritage buildings makes any renovations challenging. The Fairmont in Jasper will never be completely “modern,” because it’s important that changes reflect the rustic atmosphere of the park that surrounds it.
“A lot of our visitors come here with a great emotional expectation,” he said. “Think about this room here that we’re in: people have a very emotional connection to it, and have a loyalty to this place.
“To renovate a building like this is not like renovating some city upright. You have to get it right, and you have to take time to get the design right—this is going to be something that is going to have to last us 10-15 years.”
Trevor Nichols
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