Venerable Port Hotel to get a new look in spring

The Port Hotel in Port Washington will take on a new look this spring.

Co-owner Jim Read said long-held plans to add an elevator, lobby for the hotel and expand the penthouse will begin in spring.

“By spring I want to be moving,” he told the city’s Design Review Board, which approved the plans on Dec. 18. “I’d love to get the foundation done if we get a break in the weather this winter.”

The plans are a little different than those approved several years ago by the city.

The new elevator will be located on the east side of the building, not the south side as approved in 2022, Read said.

“I realized it would be much easier to come off the side of the building” instead of the back, he told the board, noting it will also make the elevator much less visible — important for a historical building.

“The elevator doesn’t really improve the aesthetics of the back of the building, which is visible from Grand Avenue,” Read said.

In addition to the elevator, the project includes a lobby for the hotel and potentially a veranda at the front of the building, where an entrance to the hotel will be located facing Main Street.

It will also allow for separate entrances for customers of the hotel and restaurant, Read noted.

“And if we’re going to have a walkway between the entrances (at the east-side elevator and off Main Street), why not have a veranda?” Read said.

Currently, there is no elevator for the hotel, and it can be difficult for guests to haul their luggage up the steep staircases inside the building, he said.

The elevator is also needed to make the hotel handicapped accessible, Read said,  noting the only way to access the building’s second and third floors is via stairs.

An added benefit, he said, is the fact that it will allow them to eliminate the “ugly fire escape on the east and on the west, leaving only the west balconies that can be made both (code) compliant and beautiful with higher guardrails and decking.”

The current fire escape is “actually very dangerous,” he said.

Read noted that the east-side addition will be about nine feet deep but add a significant amount of ease for guests.

In addition to allowing guests to easily travel between floors, it will also allow for the addition of a rooftop patio and eventually a penthouse, Read said.

“That’s a possible gathering space that would be another amenity for our guests,” he said. “We have a beautiful view from there.”

This is the right time to make the changes, Read said, adding that the changes will allow them to create an accessible suite on the first floor and potentially a couple other new rooms as well.

“Our bookings have been doing really well so we felt this is the time to make some improvements,” Read said. “It’s a small boutique hotel; it’s challenging.”

In a memo to the board, he noted that the improvements will help the hotel improve its extended-stay business, which includes tourists and seasonal residents.

Bob Harris, the city’s director of planning and development, noted that the elevator hoistway will be about four feet taller than the existing building, but because it is set back from the edge of the roof it shouldn’t be noticeable.

There is a six-foot-tall chimney that extends from the roof now that’s largely unseen, Read added.

Members of the board were enthusiastic about the changes to the building.

“I think this is a great improvement,” Fire Chief Joe DeBoer, a member of the board, said. “It adds function and improves the overall aesthetics.”

“I think it looks very handsome,” Chairman Jeremy Hartline said. “I like the new design. I like the new location (of the addition).”

The Port Hotel has been a part of the Port Washington landscape for more than a century. 

It was built in 1902 as the Thill Hotel. It later became the Mayer Hotel, and was owned by the Mayer family until 1960. While the hotel later closed, the building continued to be used as a restaurant and tavern for decades.

The restaurant closed in about 2017 and the inn a short time later. In 2021, Read and Port restaurateur Angel Tello purchased the building, which today is home to Moonlight Tavern and the Port Hotel inn.