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Sep 22, 2023

Worcester Living: Mount Washington Hotel spent lockdown revamping and expanding

Way, way, way up, just below the Mount Rosebrook summit opposite New Hampshire’s

Way, way, way up, just below the Mount Rosebrook summit opposite New Hampshire's mighty Presidential Mountains, a new building is now visible, glinting in the fall sunlight.

This, the Rosebrook Lodge, is the venerable Omni Mount Washington Resort's brand-new 16,000-square-foot on-mountain, up-mountain dining and event space. It opened at the beginning of fall, tentatively, though, with limited service due to the pandemic restrictions.

Still, Rosebrook Lodge had at least a couple of weddings under its belt by Columbus Day Weekend, a very popular time for leaf peepers and pre-ski season travelers in this remote northeastern New Hampshire region.

The three-tiered Rosebrook Lodge is a sleek mid-century modern-ist building with curved lines and rich colored wood framing walls of windows, which look directly onto the Presidential Mountains and the Northeast's highest peak, Mount Washington.

Inside, the ground floor Switchback Grille is a more formal restaurant with waitstaff service. Above it, Crystal Mountains is set-up as a casual self-serve eatery. There's also Peaks, a grab-and-go coffee shop, too.

Both restaurants have a fireplace and outdoor decks, and a nature-influenced design of soft mossy green highlights to the furnishings and decor. While the grill's name is obvious, Crystal Hills comes from the White Mountains’ early designation by settlers — the mountains shimmered in the distance, as if crystal clad.

This past winter, the new Bretton Woods Skyway Gondola, New Hampshire's first eight-passenger gondola, opened to whisk skiers and ‘boarders up Mount Rosebrook.

As Rosebrook Lodge was going up this past spring and summer, down in the valley, changes were afoot at the historic Mount Washington Hotel.

With the hotel closed due to the pandemic, the already planned renovations to the majestic main dining room went ahead unhindered. Stripped down to its sticky mastic covered original flooring, craftsmen stood on high step-ladders, painstakingly re-etching the pretty moldings around the ceiling.

Then, came a sizable change in the room's set-up and seating.

Due in large part to changing attitudes to dining, and the rise of drinking culture in America, the most significant change to the octagonal shaped Main Dining Room, as it is so very functionally called, is a big, modern, white marble-topped 18-foot square bar, which stands smack in its middle. It has day-to-night rotating shelving so that booze bottles may be hidden during breakfast service. Hidden but not forgotten: an eye-opener is not verboten.

New banquettes are installed surrounding the bar and whilst the much-favored dining tables fan out along the windows on one side of the central bar area, the other side has cozy sitting areas with settees and a newly installed fireplace. It has more of a lounge atmosphere.

The Main Dining Room has a sturdy, earthy brown and soft green scheme, matched by rich chestnut brown wood. Wallpaper, softly etched with a scene that could very well be the mountains, glens, and valleys outside in the White Mountain National Forest, form panels, like bespoke murals of old.

The new configuration means there's now no room for the grand piano and its performers, or the small dance floor, which added a nostalgic touch of old world class to dinner.

The piano is moved into the charming Sun Dining Room, an adjacent elegant salon separated by original French doors.

This is the hotel's fine dining spot, but it will also be used for private and wedding parties. Compared to the Main Dining Room's lounge and dining areas, this is a prettier space, decked out in silvery gray and royal purple. Along with the new, there is the old: the original antique dining chairs are now re-upholstered. Call it New England thrift, but they look as good if not better than new — these seats were not crafted for single generation use.

The hotel's other main restaurant, Stickney's Steak and Chop Pub, downstairs on the lower level Stickney Street, has a popular terrace for warm weather. However, its interior seating around a big roaring fire counts more during the colder months.

Up or down, the menus are not too dissimilar, and the cooking in either is rooted in solid classical training — rainbow trout meunière; pan roasted Bay of Fundy salmon with a beurre blanc sauce. Seasonal elements crop up — creamed New Hampshire mushrooms with a puff pastry biscuit; butternut squash soup — and so do new ideas — quinoa with roasted veggies and tofu, and a rich, sharp ponzu sauce.

Then, there's the sinful: sticky toffee pudding with bourbon sauce, and brioche bread pudding with a caramel sauce are hard to resist.

Brick lined and windowless, Stickney Street is a fun stretch with some fanciful gift shops and Morsels, a grab-and-go cafe serving Peet's coffee and pastries.

It also houses the Carroll/Bretton Woods post office. This is the main post office for the "town," because there isn't a town center as such.

There is also an arcade room packed with classic and new video games, and The Cave, an intriguing cellar-like nightclub, which was once a speakeasy during Prohibition. Illegal booze flowed straight from Canada to the hotel.

Back in the day, there was a ladies bridge room, a gentlemen's billiards room, a squash court and a bowling alley.

Also part of this Omni property, the Fabyan Station restaurant at the intersection of the Mount Washington base road and Route 302, was the original train station where guests once arrived in droves.

People are still packing the Mount Washington Hotel. So much so, that the resort needed more rooms. The newly built Presidential Wing should be completed by the end of winter 2021, adding 66 guest rooms and three one-bedroom suites.

These rooms include a modern rustic decor with gray tartan patterned wallpaper accent walls, balconies, and opulent bathrooms with egg soaking tubs and separate showers.

The new Jewell Terrace, which stretches over the roof of the Presidential Wing, is already open. Facing Mount Washington, this expansive outdoor deck, another venue for wedding and private do's, includes a small Astroturf patch for lawn games and lots of lounge space, as well as the Observatory Bar, thus named because it faces Mount Washington, whose weather station towers are just visible.

This, normally, will be a perfect perch from which to sip among the visuals of nature's glory. During the pandemic, well, that's been a little more complicated.

This layer of new elements is yet another phase in a fascinating history of one of the few surviving Victorian era resorts or hotels left in the White Mountains. Most burned down.

The Mount Washington Hotel first opened its doors at the height of summer in 1902, its shimmering white Italianate exterior giving way to interior halls of Gilded Age splendor. More practically, it opened with a fire retardant sprinkler system and electricity in place.

It was a pinnacle of achievement for its owner, Joseph Stickney, a Concord, New Hampshire, native, who made a vast fortune in Pennsylvania in the booming coal and railroad industries.

Stickney died just one year after the hotel opened, leaving his young wife, Carolyn, a Waltham, Massachusetts, native, some 30 years Stickney's junior, a very merry widow. Though the Mount Washington Hotel always remained her home away from several homes, she later married a French prince, Aymon de Faucigny-Lucinge, and officially became Princess Carolyn. The pretty Princess Room, once her private salon, is named for her.

The room is now a plush, rather romantic bar and dining area, adjacent to the Main Dining Room. Afternoon tea — with bespoke tea blends, pastries and delicate savories — is served on Friday and Saturday afternoons.

In its beginnings, the Mount Washington Hotel drew wealthy city dwellers, all escaping urban summer heat and smog, for the White Mountains’ cool breezes and clean air. And those views.

The Gold Room, off the Great Hall, next to the Grand Ballroom, is where the Bretton Woods Agreement was signed in the summer of 1944, creating one of the 20th Century's most important institutions: The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In the summer of 1944, representatives from 44 Allied countries met here for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, also known as the Bretton Woods Conference. After two weeks of daily meetings in the ballroom, the agreement was signed and ratified in Georgia a year later.

It's interesting to note, the economic principles laid down in the White Mountains in 1944 were successfully adopted after the 2008 recession, and may be brought forth to provide guidelines for the post COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery.

This century, when the hotel and its holdings became part of the Omni Hotel Group, this grand dame underwent much restoration, including the impressive Great Hall, where the head of an unfortunate moose hangs above a big welcoming stone fireplace.

The hotel is still surrounded by 800,000 acres of White Mountain National Forest, part of which is dissected by the Appalachian Trail.

A mile or so down Route 302, Bretton Woods Ski Area is owned by the resort and, at 464 acres, this is New Hampshire's largest ski area. It's also home to the Bretton Woods Canopy Tour zip line, which puts adventurers high up in old growth hemlocks. In winter, the Nordic Ski Center takes over the golfing clubhouse in front of the hotel, offering cross-country skiing and snow shoeing.

As with everything right now, call ahead to check what is open and under what restrictions. Rooms from $199, including Wi-Fi. (603) 278-1000. 310 Mount Washington Hotel Road, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, 03575. omnihotels.com