Photo Tour of Whitney Peak Hotel

Amazing photos and I'm now genuinely excited about their opening. Not to overuse an overused term but this very well could be a Reno hospitality "game changer."

Smart move in the decoration of Heritage. Restaurant equipment is easy to resell or reuse in another Estee venture, and you can just throw out all that cheap-ass pine paneling dyed black for the bar and burned (??) for the private enclave area. Yuck. And, heck, why not keep flogging the climbing aspect since the walls and boulders are mostly already there. So far they've been less than unpopular but maybe with a new restaurant and club they'll pull in more business now. Hotel rooms still have low ceilings (of course) and cheap, oversaturated giclee photo prints of Reno and funky lamps/couches. I'm sure you could find a hotel like this in Los Angeles or San Francisco, but it'd be considered even more of a joke there. This looks more like a third swing and a whiff.

I guess Sara Lee and I see different things. haha!

Sara Lee, your analyses makes absolutely no sense at all, you're naive to the fact that this business model has actually been thoroughly thought out and not just scrambled together like the previous model. Yes, I proudly assert the fact that I work there and stand behind it, it is a risk but a calculated one that I believe will work in this community and draw in more people. Whitney Peak will be the catalyst for future developments ahead (Virginian) so while everyone has a right to be opinionated, maybe come in and experience it before you judge so hard.

I apologize for making comments based upon the photographs of your property. Good luck.

The climbing gym was the only venue in the previous incarnations that actually made worthwhile revenue. It was the best thing that they had in there.

Nice photo spread, Mike, thank you for sharing this with your readers. The hotel lobby, music venue and restaurant seem attractive to me, probably a good fit for the demographics and potential market to be reached. After all, you cannot try to install a Perino's-type high end restaurant in an area which won't support it. Sara, the skeleton of the building provides limitations on what can be done with the common areas and guest rooms when remodeling an older hotel. You pretty much have to work with guest room sizes and ceiling heights, because if you totally gut the building, your costs of renovation and new HVAC ducting will make the project unworkable. I have represented restaurant and hotel operators for decades. I believe this model can work in Reno, IF marketed properly: Guests will need to be those visitors who prefer to avoid a casino environment, so attracting collegiate teams playing at U of N would be a start, along with special interest groups such as clergy or judicial officers visiting for seminars. (Yes, there are ministerial groups and judicial officers who attend continuing education programs in the Reno ). Maybe a linkage with the new Siri's Casino, which I believe does not have its own hotel, could be negotiated to create some players' club credits toward room rental reductions at the hotel, also. At least some cross-marketing could be explored. Hopefully the music venue won't be stuck on hip hop, loud D.J. shows, stadium rock and heavy metal type acts. Special interest groups like swing music fans, special music interest followers, such as R & B, some C & W groups, will come to hear their favorites perform and they will rent the rooms. The 20-somethings who go to a hard rock concert or a D.J. party won't rent rooms, they just want to dance and meet each other, but they will buy drinks and pay a night club entrance fee. This project as I see it needs special event development and planning, iand it could then succeed. I don't think that the rock climbers are going to be hotel guests in any significant number, though, because the majority of those folks tend to be campground users or camper truck people, or they might stay in budget properties. I don't foresee this hotel as aiming to be a budget lodging property, so in my opinion, the bouldering customers are not likely a good foundation for room rentals -- but each facet nonetheless can succeed independently. These are just my opinions, I'm sure the management has done its feasibility studies for the property. I wish them good luck.

This has complete failure written all over it. Oh and the rooms? Absolutely horrific.

Have you actually been there James? Or are you basing your judgement purely on my photos which show incomplete rooms and property since it was still under construction when I dropped by for these photos?