Kristal Painter is the executive director at Visit French
Lick West Baden, and her office is located on the main drag through town and
within a shout of West Baden Springs Hotel. Practically on a daily basis, folks
who see the majestic domed hotel up the hill will drop into the visitor’s center and assume
that the hotel is off limits to them if they’re just passing through.
“A lot of times they’ll come in here and they don’t think
you can go into West Baden Springs Hotel,” Painter said, and her conversations
with those folks usually go something like this:
What is that building
back there?
Oh yeah, that’s the West
Baden Springs Hotel. It’s a National Historic Landmark.
Can we go in there?
Yes, they would LIKE
you to go in there.
Even if you’re wearing jeans. (You don’t have to be dressed
to the hilt to enter; Painter often hears that inquiry as well.)
Granted, the hotel was billed as the “Eighth Wonder of the
World” soon after it opened in 1902, so it’s easy to see how the building could
have a museum-ish “look but don’t touch” vibe surrounding it.
But, yes, just to clarify, West Baden Springs Hotel is a
hotel of the people. You’re welcome to pop in and take a look around.
“Guests will come in and ask if they can enter and just walk
around. In fact, I’ve had guests today do that. They do ask,” said Pam Clarke,
a concierge at West Baden who explained what the hesitation is all about for
some people. “That probably comes from other hotels that have closed properties.
You get some of the upper-end places and you have to be a guest to be on the
property. That’s probably where they get that idea from.”
“We’re a little bit different because we’re not just a
hotel. In a normal hotel, you wouldn’t go in and just kind of hang out. But we’re
a historic property where they give the historical tour and things, so
that makes us a little different.”
All sorts of first-time visitors come by to peek inside.
Youth and high school sports teams have dropped by if they’re
in the area and between games. Clarke recently had visitors from Australia who
were staying with company in Bloomington, as a lot of folks will bring their out-of-town
guests to West Baden for the day for lunch at Ballard’s in the Atrium, an ice
cream cone, or a cocktail while sitting and listen to the nightly live music in
the atrium. If you’ve got a little time to spend, the historical tours that
Clarke mentioned launch at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. every day and take you
through the ground level, atrium and gardens area at the hotel.
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| The atrium at West Baden Springs Hotel is lounge-worthy, photo-worthy and stroll-worthy. |
Guests staying nearby at French Lick Springs Hotel are also
often reminded that they’re welcome to stop by and see the sights at the other
hotel up the road while they’re here. For all the physical beauty that abounds
within the circular walls at West Baden Springs Hotel, the real beauty of the
place is that it’s open and accessible for everyone to see.