BOSTON— The Saunders Hotel Group here has completed a $10 million exterior revamp of The Lenox Hotel, closing out a comprehensive property renovation that began more than six years ago at the 102-year-old landmark hotel in the Back Bay section. The exterior restoration project began more than two years ago after water began seeping through the exterior’s bricks and mortar and became trapped within the building, built in 1900. As a result, the steel beams that support the façade began to rust and expand, pushing the hotel’s bricks slowly outward. Additionally, severe pressure from the rusting steel— 10,000 pounds per square inch, according to the hotel— threatened to cause the brick headers and masonry windowsills to snap if the situation had gone undetected and uncorrected. Jeffrey Saunders, president/CEO of Saunders Hotel Group told HOTEL BUSINESS®, “In the midst of a very difficult operating environment and economic uncertainty, this restoration represents everything the Saunders Hotel Group stands for: continuity, tradition, and an uncompromising desire to deliver the newest, best and most excellent product.” The overall renovation included revamping and enhancing guestrooms and marble bathrooms, adding three new luxury suites, upgrading meeting space, opening three restaurants, and lastly, a state-of-the-art business center. Todd Saunders, evp/Saunders Hotel Group, noted the exterior restoration replaced 225,000 bricks, 612 windows, 60 tons of terra cotta and took thousands of hours of expert planning, design and coordination. SHG brought in architectural and engineering specialists to restore the property’s design, replicating the original structure by matching bricks, mortar color and pre-cast materials. The teams stripped off the building’s exterior skin to repair the steel, removing terra cotta elements, replacing them with custom-made lightweight glass fiber reinforced plastic material (GFRP), designed with enough flexibility to allow readjustment inward or outward to fit the structure, which has expanded in recent years. Todd Saunders likened the project to “a puzzle akin to putting Humpty Dumpty back together again,” and one that needed to utilize “a team effort of creative engineering and constant problem solving to restore this historic building to its original grandeur while incorporating modernizing features.” Extensive fire-rated insulation and a waterproof membrane make up a new curtain wall system, hidden behind the building’s water struck brick veneer. To conserve energy and eliminate outside noise and dust, all windows were replaced with double-pane, soft-coated “Low-E” glass. Adhering to SHG’s commitment to environmental preservation, efforts were made to reuse and recycle resources. For example, brick and masonry removed from the building were reused for asphalt surfaces, while aluminum from window frames was recycled. “We couldnt be happier with the way The Lenox restoration turned out. One hundred and two years old never looked so good,” said Jeffrey Saunders.
The Lenox