Hotel Hale, located in what was once the Hale Bath House on Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs National Park, will receive Preserve Arkansas' 2019 Excellence in Preservation through Rehabilitation Award in January.
Hot Springs Mayor Pat McCabe, who leased the bath house from the Park Service with his wife, Ellen, said this award "reinforces the need for us to preserve our older historic structures."
"I can't say enough good things regarding Congressman Westerman's efforts in preserving of the historic tax credits," McCabe said. "Projects like these would not get done without historic tax credits being available."
According to the National Park Service, the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives program encourages private sector investment in the rehabilitation and re-use of historic buildings.
McCabe said oftentimes people think there are "great big" companies or people with "tremendous amounts" of wealth undertaking preservation projects and that they are profiting from the tax credit program, but that's not the case.
"If you look of Bathhouse Row, and look at the people who have participated in the restoration of these facilities, and utilize these historic tax credits, they're just regular people next door," McCabe said. "These aren't individuals with tremendous wealth that people think are participating in these programs. They're just everyday people who get up in the morning and go to work and say 'I want to do something a little different here, how can I get it done?'"
The nearly 11-month rehabilitation of the Hale Bath House building was essentially a "total build-out," McCabe said.
"The lobby area is the remaining historic footprint of the Hale Bath House, and so there was really no work done there, with the exception of a little bit of wall repair, a fresh coat of paint and some deep cleaning," he said. "(But) the balance of the structure was essentially gutted."
McCabe said there were nine "upscale" overnight rooms built on the second floor, and a "very elegant, upscale casual" dining room built behind the foyer.
"When I give a tour of the facility, I always tell those in the group if it's brick, it's existing -- if it's anything but brick, it's newly constructed," he said. "When you go to the second floor, there's a lot of newly constructed because that was just basically a large open area."
McCabe said although he had an idea for preserving the Maurice Bath House building, he is going to be "one and done" with preservation projects.
"Construction (for the Hale Hotel) took 10 and a half months, but the concept was created in September 2013 -- so it was a long, long project from creation of idea to actually serving the public," he said.
McCabe added that as much as he and his wife would like to say the Hale Hotel is their creation, they "insulated" the project with "very good people" and their "fingerprints" are on the project too.
"At the end of the day Ellen and I finish our day at Hotel Hale, and we'll be in the dining room -- I have my one place to sit on a comfy bench -- looking at the wall we created that is the access point for the eat-in dining area and it just kind of amazes us how well this whole project has done and how beautiful it is," he said. "It's something we take pride in because it's something we created, and we had a lot of great people helping us."
According to Preserve Arkansas, the statewide nonprofit advocate for historic preservation and will honor the recipients of the 2019 Arkansas Preservation Awards on Jan. 17 at the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, 1800 Center St., Little Rock.
Local on 12/16/2019