The sharp smell of new paint mixed with the musty smell of an old building, the dusty scent of construction and the pungent smell of sulfur, blend together to form the work in progress that is the Hot Lake Hotel.

With a history paralleling the story of the West and a feeling of early 20th-century luxury, the Hot Lake Hotel stands like a monolith of a lost time.

It has been a resort, a sanitarium, a hospital and a nursing home. In the last few decades, it’s might has been worn down by vandals and trespassers until very little was left but a firm foundation and strong brick walls.

There were whispers of ghosts in its hallways, pigeons in its rafters, and snakes and rats in its floorboards.

That is, until David and Lee Manuel arrived.

The Manuels’ mission

“The way I look at it, is when you have a loved one on life support and the doctor says there’s no hope, the person is going to die. That’s how Hot Lake was,” said John Lamoreau, former county commissioner and volunteer at the hotel. “Then a miracle happens. The person comes back to life. The person comes out of a coma. That is what has happened with Hot Lake and David and Lee Manuel being here.”

In November 2003, Lee said their son brought her and David out to view the property. They decided then and there to begin the first step on a long journey toward restoring this piece of Oregon history. They started purchasing the property that year and own it in full today.

The Manuels are keeping one room in the condition the building was when they bought it. The room has bare boards and exposed bricks through peeling plaster. Most surfaces are covered with pigeon feathers or dung. Looking up, one can see where the roof had been replaced through splintered ceiling boards.

“It’s difficult to really show how bad this was,” Lamoreau said.

“You could stand on the first floor, look up and see the big dipper,” David Manuel said.

The Manuels undertook that task because they saw the value housed within the decaying walls of the 100-year-old hotel.

“I love history,” David said. “I love history and my only regret is I don’t have a second life to add the addition on out here, the part that burned down. I wish I had a second life so I could re-build that.”

“Somebody had to do it,” Lee Manuel said. “My heart told me I have to come and support this project.”

She said the project is estimated to cost less than $10 million and the Manuels are in the last quarter of finishing the restoration.

“If the building could talk it would say, ‘OK, I’m coming back!'” Lee said.

The Manuels have installed a gift shop and foundry on the ground floor of the hotel. They are still working on the restaurant.

David Manuel’s statues, both small and large, stand in display throughout the room.

Original ornate tiling covers the floors of the lobby, dating back to 1907.

The ground floor will hold a health spa in addition to the lobby, gift shop, foundry and restaurant.

The second and third floors will be converted into guest rooms and suites.

The Manuels are still converting a back wing of the building into a museum full of artifacts belonging to the Manuels.

Also on the grounds is a drive-up coffee stand and Honor Garden dedicated to Americans who serve the country either through military service or other services like firefighting, policing and teaching.

Thirteen bronze statues of eagle heads sit atop 13 brick pedestals. Donators who wish to honor friends or family can purchase small plaques to line the sides of the pedestals.

Hot Lake’s history

Though the official history of Hot Lake only goes back to 1812, its full history extends deep into the past, following the bubbling waters into the depths of the earth and the depths of time.

Its history becomes more apparent as people moved into the area.

Prior to 1812, American Indian tribes considered the hot springs neutral ground where they would meet and rest. The lake also was known as a place of healing.

In 1812, white traders began frequenting the area. One structure still intact is believed to date back to that time. Implanted into the hillside is a root cellar believed to date back to the first white settlers.

“As people came through, having heat and hot water, this became a natural place for people to come and gather,” Lamoreau said.

From the 1840s through the 1850s, travelers along the Oregon Trail and eager miners stopped at Hot Lake to relax in the spa.

The first building was constructed by a pioneer named Newhard in 1864. The building faced the bluff, rather than the lake as the modern building does.

In 1884, the Union Pacific Railroad cut the property in half and brought mail to Hot Lake daily.

In 1903, owners tore down the old wooden structure and built a new one, that would later be the base structure for the brick one.

This wooden structure, which included a hotel, later burned down in 1934. The gift shop is all that remains of this original wooden structure.

Hot Lake’s heyday

In 1908, the modern brick building was completed, containing 105 rooms, which kicked off the beginning of Hot Lake’s heyday. From then, until the 1930s, Hot Lake was known as a resort, sanitarium and hospital.

In 1910, rooms ranged in price from $2.50 per day to $3.50 per week, while meals cost 25 cents and up. Lamoreau said the facility served between 2,000 and 3,000 meals per day.

After 1917, the first floor held offices, a lobby, a kitchen, a dining hall and a parlor. The second floor held guest rooms and the third floor made up the hospital, containing patient rooms and a surgery room.

Dr. W. T. Phy directed the facility from 1904 to 1911 and again from 1917 until his death in 1931.

The hospital

Phy oversaw the hospital, which took up the third floor of the hotel.

Portions of the third floor are preserved in a historical fashion, to give tourists an idea of what rooms might have looked like.

Dr. Phy’s office has been refurbished with a desk, bookcase, exam table and a print of the infamous physician.

“Imagine that face looking over you as you’re about to be operated on,” Lamoreau speculated.

The old x-ray equipment was returned by someone who worked in the hospital and bought it on his retirement.

Though the machine was state of the art in its day, it looks intensely primitive today. The machine is supported by various poles jointed together with large hinges and screws.

“It’s just scary,” Lamoreau said. “You look at the dials and needles, you think of Frankenstein.”

For now, it is stored in a side room, not ready for display.

Dr. Phy’s operating room also is being restored.

The room takes up one large corner of the third floor, with large windows to allow as much natural light as possible. Looking out those windows, the mountains sparkle with winter snow in the distance.

Inside, the room is as white as a modern hospital. Rectangular tiles line the wall below the observation balcony, but once lined the entire room. Because of the damage done to most of the tiles, the rest of the walls have been painted white. The original, quarter-sized hexagonal tiles scale the floor. In the center of the room, the tiles slope down just a bit, leading down to a small drain.

The drain, Lamoreau said, was meant to catch the blood that drained from the operating table.

The room is furnished with wooden tables, but a photo hung on one wall shows a 1900-era operating table. Under the table is a bin to catch the blood before it is sent down the same drain in the middle of the room.

“They did experimental surgeries, including lobotomies out here – things that we look at as very primitive that were state of the art at the time, Dr. Phy was operating, ” Lamoreau said.

Feeling the heat

Lamoreau said Phy prescribed one piping-hot glass of Hot Lake spring water to patients per day. He advised they drink the water as hot as they could stand.

Spring water, along with hot and cold water, was piped into every guest room from a spring house beside the hotel.

The water pumps in from a spring house, a small circular building that sits closer to the lake than the rest of the house. When the Manuels decided to restore the property, Lamoreau said three-fourths of the spring house’s roof was gone.

The water bubbling up from two wells inside the house steam up the single brick room.

“You can feel it even on a warm day,” Lamoreau said.

A slow decline

The Great Depression and a fire in 1934 that destroyed almost all of the wooden structure of the hotel, took their toll on Hot Lake.

The hospital continued to function for a time and during World War II, Hot Lake functioned as a pilot’s school.

The railroad withdrew postal service in 1943, and in 1951, Highway 30 was built to bypass the resort. The diminished traffic reduced customers.

In 1953, the bundling was converted to a nursing home, which it remained until 1975.

Over the next 20 years, the property changed hands and operated as a restaurant, country western night club and massage parlor.

The property continued to change hands until the turn of the century. Different owners always had different plans. Some involved renovating the building, others involved demolishing it. None of the plans were carried through.

Meanwhile, the hotel slowly decayed. Vandals snuck in and dislodged sinks and toilets to break almost every window. The roof decayed until it was in danger of falling in on itself.

Haunting rumors

It was during this time that Hot Lake gained a reputation of being haunted.

“I have my theory on the haunting rumors,” Lamoreau said.

He said with thousands of pigeons roosting in the building and people sneaking onto the property on dark (and maybe stormy) nights, there were bound to be some odd sounds.

“You would come up, walk down the hall and hear a noise somewhere or something rustling,” he described.

Lamoreau guessed the sound of a pigeon cooing or the flutter of wings would easily scare someone who believed in ghosts. Or, because Hot Lake Hotel is so large, there could easily have been several adventurers in the building at once. It’s more than likely, he guessed, they may have scared each other.

“It became very eerie to be out here by yourself with just a flashlight,” he speculated.

Looking to the future

Although those days are behind Hot Lake, there are still darkened hallways where hairs will rise on the back of a neck.

At the same time, rooms are remodeled into cozy homes-away-from-home and the building is being drawn back up to its former glory. It won’t be long, the Manuels hope, before people will once again flood to the shores of Hot Lake to experience its history, rumored healing powers and natural charm.