No matter how many times you hear it, the comeback story of West Baden Springs Hotel is nothing short of remarkable.
It's even awe-inspiring for the people who witnessed it firsthand and did some of the dirty work bringing it back to life.
This May for National Preservation Month: 30 Years of the Cook Legacy, we're celebrating the Bill and Gayle Cook family for their efforts in saving our historic hotels, along with many of our longtime community members who jumped in and helped make it happen. They were part of the first phase of the hotel's restoration in 1996 — and 30 years later, many of them still work for our resort team, helping to uphold our tradition of hospitality.
Here are the stories of three longtime French Lick Resort team members who had a hand in helping pull off this "Save of the Century."
Dusin Farris, Slot Operations Supervisor at French Lick Casino
Take us back to 1996 and how you got involved in the hotel restoration that first summer.
I was a senior here at Springs Valley High School, and our principal at the time was Mr. Pritchett. He had correlations with Pritchett Brothers (the contractor overseeing the initial phase of improvements). He recruited a bunch of the students and seniors for a summer job, so I worked here all summer.
To you, was a kind of just a summer job? At the time, did you have a recognition of the magnitude of this project and what was going on here?
We had no clue what we were getting into; it was basically just a summer job. Obviously, we knew the condition of the place but we didn't have a clue what we were actually going to be doing on the property.
What recollections do you have of the work you did that summer around the property?
I was here about six months. My first job was on the two brick roads going from State Road 56 to Sinclair Street. They were overgrown with weeds and grass and we weren’t allowed to use any sort of heavy equipment on it, so we actually shoveled the grass. We got the weeds out between the bricks, and we did that from 56 all the way around to Sinclair Street. It was all done by hand.
Later I got moved to the roofing crew. We were told we’re going to go up, break off a few layers of shingles. Next thing, we get up there and there's probably a foot of shingles on the roof. Went from the roofing crew back to the grounds crew, and that's kind of what led into the digging out of the spring house.
You’re one of the three guys in this photo working on the Hygeia Spring House — what’s going on here?
This was actually full of sand at the time, and we started with shovels wheelbarrowing sand out the door. As we started digging down, we found a staircase (near the entrance along the wall) — a marble-type staircase if I remember correctly — and it started going down and followed the wall around. We kept shoveling and finding step after step after step that led down to a spring in the center. I don’t remember how much of the spring we found, but we did get down to the spring, and it was so deep we actually brought in an escalator-type belt and it was actually going out the window (on the far side). That’s how deep we actually dug down by hand. It was amazing what we found.
As a kid growing up, did you and friends ever come over here when this property was vacant, just kind of poke around?
There's probably some stories I probably shouldn't share (laughs) but, yeah, it was gated off and fenced off. We would actually would come in on the weekends and camp out on the fifth floor. There was state police patrolling the property, and we kind of knew what floors he was going to be on, so we would kind of hide. Obviously we didn't do any vandalism, but we did spend some time on the property.
Do you kind of recall what the feeling was among the community back then, as far as if this hotel had any type of realistic future? There was talk about restoring this hotel or bringing it back to life, but things never quite got off the ground.
It was definitely hopeful, because at the time, the town had become like a ghost town. There just wasn't a whole lot of things around. We just knew that this place was going to be restored; the magnitude of it was what we didn't know. It was definitely a surprise to the community that was gonna happen, and a big thing.
With the involvement the Cook family had in this restoration, it's kind of an amazing story when you think about where this hotel was and where it is now. Do you gain a better appreciation of that later in life, about the impact the Cooks had?
Oh, absolutely. And actually, I have a story from Mr. Cook. We were actually called the yard crew, moving dirt, hand raking, top soil and that sort of stuff. Mr. Cook was out there, actually wearing an old, ragged white shirt, jeans, and no one on the crew knew who he was, except a few of us. They were like, “why's this old man out here working with us?” And I was like, “guys, that’s your boss.” And of course they didn't believe us, so I turned around and said, “hey, Bill.” And, of course, Mr. Cook turned around and was like, “well, who needs me?” And, of course, everybody points at me. He walked up, he introduced himself to the group, told us who he was. It was pretty amazing, because – I’m going to jump forward a little bit — in 2006, he came in the casino and he remembered my full name. He walked up, shook my hand, said he remembered me from West Baden. Ten years later, it goes to show who the Cooks are. They do care about their employees, they really do, and it's not just another job for them. It's like a family.
Was it a common occurrence to see him out here on the work site?
Oh, absolutely. He made a statement that day that he wouldn't have us do anything that he wouldn't do himself. You would see him running weed eaters, push mowers, just the same as we were doing. That was a great thing to see.
For people who haven't seen the hotel before what it is now, it's hard to get a grasp on what condition this was in before it was restored. What are your recollections of what the hotel looked like before?
Oh, I mean, it was a disaster. There's water puddles on the floor (in the atrium), there's glass busted out, other paint falling off the wall. When you walked in, it was almost scary to be in here. It was that run-down. Seeing it like this (today), it's truly amazing what's been done with it.
When you do come back inside West Baden today, does it always take you back to what it was in 1996?
It's just a good feeling when you see it in the condition it is today, just knowing that you were a part of this, and you had hands on, and, you know, you were the one that scraped the walls, and scraped the floors, and brought it back to life that it is today. It was a summer job that turned into something we would never have pictured it being today. I'm just glad I was able to be a part of the history here in Springs Valley.
Melinda Johnson, 20-Year Associate in the Laundry Department
Back in 1996 when West Baden Springs Hotel was coming back to life, what was your involvement in that first stage of the restoration?
I started on the paint crew, and there was scaffolding on the outside that went all the way to the roof. We’d climb that every day and paint it … work our way down. Got scary at times being up that high; that’s a ways up there. But it was pretty cool. I had fun.
I think 5 months into it, I found out I was pregnant. So I went from painting to cleaning. I remember cleaning all these rooms before they were (finished) rooms. We’d go out on the balconies and clean off all the dust. It was an everyday thing, because the dust was so thick. I’d say there was 10-15 of us on the paint crew, and most of us were women. We did painting inside, too, when the weather was bad we’d come in here and paint the halls.
What cleaning work did you do?
I took care of rooms they would get done, I’d go in and clean. The library was done, we’d go in and clean it. They had all the offices set up (near the lobby), we’d go in and keep them clean. And that was the first time I met Bill Cook.
What recollections do you have from that?
I was in there cleaning, and this man walked in with overalls on and rain boots, I think. They weren’t even zipped up. He had a toboggan hat on. Thinking, “who is this guy? I don’t know this guy.” I just went on cleaning. He said hi, and I said hi. He got a cup of coffee, stood there for a minute. And he said “you have a good day,” I said “you have a good day.” And he left. Little bit later I asked somebody who that was. They said it was Bill Cook. I said, “oh great!” If I had known that, I’d have taken some more conversation. I had no clue at all.
From your childhood, what memories do you have of West Baden Springs Hotel?
It was Northwood (Institute) back then, and this is where we had the Orange County Pumpkin Festival. All the way down the brick road, started up here at the flower bed and went all the way to the arch. On both sides, you had carnival booths, rides, stands, vendors, food booths. Anything you wanted, it was there. Same thing in this atrium, it was full. In the field outside, rides galore from one end to the other. It was some of my best memories, to come in here and look around, see the fireplace — they kept a real fire going in it. And (at Christmas), they always had Santa Claus here.
After Northwood left, was it surprising how quickly the building went downhill?
Oh, yes. I was shocked of the wall that had actually fell. I didn’t realize how bad the arch was and how much it had deteriorated. But, when you don’t get attention you’re going to do that. You very seldom saw anyone over here.
What was the feeling among people around town, as to whether the hotel could be saved or if there was a future for it?
I think there was a lot of hope in being able to save it. Mr. Cook bought it, and I think that made the town happy. It helped out, it provided more jobs — things like that. It was one of those things where you hoped, but you didn’t really know.
When they started the restoration in 1996, how did you get involved?
I was working at Kimball, and I wanted a change. I heard they were hiring, came over and applied and they hired me right on the spot. I started the next day. I really wanted to see what it was going to look like — be part of putting that back together.
That first summer in 1996, I’m sure it took a while to see any progress.
Oh, it took a long while. I don’t think you really saw a lot of progress for probably a year, just because it was so bad. It was when painting was pretty well done, you could put the paintbrush down and the (finished) rooms were coming together at the same time. That was when it was like, “OK, we’ll be all right now.” I was glad to see it back.
When it was at its worst, what did it look like inside the hotel?
Oh, it was bad. The ceiling was falling in, there were water puddles, big chunks of concrete everywhere. A lot of debris. Door facings that were torn off. It was really rough. Seeing something like that, you step back and say, “are we going to be able to fix that?” Yeah … you see it now. It’s fixed.
Matt Land, Assistant Manager at The Stables
Take us back to 1996 and kind of where you were at in life and what led you to the restoration that they were starting over here.
Back then, I'd just graduated high school and needed a summer job, and this was an opportunity to work close to home. My assistant principal at the school, he was relatives of the Pritchett Brothers construction, and that kind of led me over here to work here, so it turned out to be pretty good job.
Do you remember your first day showing up here on the site and kind of what it looked like over here?
Ruins. I knew looking at things that this was going to be a huge project. I didn’t envision anybody would finish. I thought it was going to be fix it up enough to do tours, like the historical tours they were doing back then with (Indiana Landmarks). Nothing to what it is now, that's for sure.
What did do day to day on the job site here?
Basically, anything they ask me to do. Mowing, weed eating, we’d scrape paint off the walls, and they had me up on the roof with the roofers — I just carried the shingles to them. I helped dig out some of the (Hygeia) spring house — a lot of digging. Brush-hogging these fields. The bricks (on the driveway) were grown over real thick, so we had to clean up all the driveways from both ends. Just a little bit of everything.
I worked through the summer, all the way through the wintertime we were inside scraping the paint off the walls, and opening (guest room walls). The rooms were much smaller back then, so it was almost like taking a wall (of two old guest rooms) to make one room.
These gardens where we're standing right now, how badly were these overgrown, and what did they look like?
It looked like a small forest in here. The bricks were grown over, we had to pull all of them up and re-lay the bricks. The fountain, if I can remember right, not very much of it left. Same way with different things around here. It was just something that you wouldn't think we could bring back to (life).
It seems everyone has a story about meeting Bill Cook for the first time. What’s yours?
I was probably here for a week, and Mr. Cook came most of the time in a helicopter. They wanted me to get out here and mow one of these fields that was grown up at the time, so they could land out here. He got off and introduced himself, and I introduced myself. What was neat about it, a couple weeks later, he saw me up in the hallway (inside the hotel) and called me by name and asked how I was doing. I thought that was pretty cool. He remembered everybody, and you weren’t just a worker here, you were an actual person. It made you feel good about it.
When renovations were finally complete in 2007, do you remember coming back into this building for the first time and seeing the transformation?
Oh, yeah. By that time, I was back working with the stables and seeing the transition, getting closer to being a finished product. It was really neat. You always see a before-and-after picture of renovations, and that's all I could picture walking through: “what's behind that wall,” or “what's behind that door now,” and it was neat to see that because you kind of got that after “before” picture in the back of your mind.
With some years, do you gain even more of an appreciation of the Cooks and what they did not just for the hotels but for the community?
Absolutely. I mean, it'ss 100%, if they didn't do anything here like they've done … would the French Lick Springs Hotel be still going at this time? I never would have thought somebody would come in here like Bill and Gayle Cook and doing the things they did, just for the sake of it being (renovated), but they come in and did it all, you know? The passion that they had doing this kind of made it possible to realize what it could be.
When you know the hard work you put in, is there a sense of pride, and what was that feeling once you started seeing progress?
Pride, yes, but gratitude, too, for the (guests) that come here now and see it, versus what we knew it was before. Guests see these “before” pictures along the wall of the atrium, they can't believe it, just like we can't believe it.
