Owner Of The Albion Hotel In Bayfield Says The Damage To The Hotel Was More Serious Than He Originally Thought It Was

by Bob Montgomery

The roof of the Albion Hotel in Bayfield collapsed on December 8th.

The owner of the hotel, Jeff Graham, says it looked bad enough then, but he's found the damage is more extensive than he originally thought it was. Graham says when he first walked into the hotel all of the drywall was still up and looking good in the upstairs. Graham later realized they had forgotten there was about four feet of snow sitting in the attic. When it got warm, all that snow melted and leaked through the entire building, which required the building to be about eighty percent gutted.

Graham says they're still in the demolition phase at this point. “We've gutted the four rooms upstairs and they're now down to the studs, ceilings came down yesterday, upstairs all of the wet installation has been removed and mold remediation was performed upstairs. Now we've moved down into the dining room and the bar. The ceilings are down in the dining room, and all of the walls in the dining room are down to the studs, and mold remediation has been done there. The bar and the back bar have been removed and ceiling in the bar is scheduled to come down on Tuesday, and then mold remediation will be done there. Dryers will be run for some time to get everything dry again. Right now they're just waiting for the brick work to get up above where it needs to be so we can get trusses on.”

Graham says it's too early to say when they might be able to re-open. He says once the roof is on they can start putting things back together, but there's no point in bringing things back into the building until the roof's on.

The Albion Hotel, a few days after the roof collapsed.