Abandoned Vacation pt.1

By now you all know if it has dust and asbestos I want explore it, so for our next trip my friends and I decided to take a mid week getaway to some incredible abandoned resorts/ hotels in the tri-state area. The spots we planned to check out looked amazing from the videos and photos we found prior to going. One a giant mid evil themed hotel complete with indoor and outdoor pools and full spa and the second an old resort hotel with several cool amenities spread out over multiple buildings. The drive to location number one was shorter than the last few spots we found in the area, left the warm car at an easy parking spot, hoped for the best and walked right into the site. Outside was pretty impressive you could see the hotel was huge and included several buildings, in front were little cottages people or larger families could rent over a regular room they looked small outside but were pretty spacious inside. We peeked around a few of those but headed inside quickly so we could see as much as possible as there were roomers of a care taker who patrols the grounds. There is probably a hundred ways to get into such a large place but we went through the front door because it was left wide open. Once Inside we found ourselves in the main lobby which was very much intact, the service desk with all the room keys was there, old corded phones, and information pamphlets were hanging around as well as a beautiful baby grand piano, large fire place, poker table and ping pong table. The walls were textured and you could see where the welcome sign once hung. Next we found a salon style bar and lounge with all the glasses tables and chairs where they were last left. This room was pitch black and we had to light it ourselves which was a challenge with such a large room but we managed to get a few good shots anyways. As we explored we found several dining halls, bars and an industrial sized kitchen capable of feeding an army. The entire hotel had the fun mid evil theme and decor throughout. Most of the rooms were unlocked some more destroyed than others with random lamps and old scattered remains of lost things like clothes and appointment books, though a few rooms were shut up tight and in perfect condition that we could see thorough the sliding doors. We found evidence of a squatter living there oddly in a tent in one of the dining halls which confused me because if your already cool with staying in an abandoned hotel why wouldn’t you stay in one of the nice rooms?. The best part for me was the salon and spa, we had seen a photos prior to going of this particular spot so Amber and I bought all the essential props for an old school beauty salon shoot. It was perfect with all the chairs and old hair books that were still there,nail polish hair and curlers ( we brought our own for amber’s hair style) there were even appointment cards with names and dates on them. The entire spa was pretty bad ass they had a sauna, tanning beds still in the rooms, a waxing room, and several beautiful spa showers, it would of been a lovely way for a lady to spend the day back when it was open. From the huge theater room filled with discarded energy drinks, to the court yard with broken fountain and even an abandoned greyhound style bus, this spot was huge and seemed never ending. I am sure there are spots we missed but we spent a good few hours here and managed to cover a lot of ground. During the walk though the hotel we saw from the window the strangest looking display in the distance but clearly connected to the property we could make out a giant pink arch a giraffe and a panda so obviously we had to go see what that was on the way out. It turn out this place attached was called “ Hello panda festival” and it was a loop around walk that was decorated in all kinds of animal and fun themed displays that light up at night, it was the most random thing next to an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere I’ve ever seen. We walked about half way through the little festival before were were told by a nice older man who we assumed was the hotel care taker and his friendly dog that we had to leave and to come back at night when it was open the next week. Lucky for us he didn’t see us going in and out of the building all morning so we had absolutely no trouble on this trip. A little history about the hotel, it originally opened in the 1970’s, tucked into the mountains and marketed as “One of the northeast’s premier conference, resorts and vacation destinations”. With dining rooms that could accommodate 2.000 people this hotel was host to some very interesting groups of people and individuals over the years., it was also the first hotel to get off-track betting in 1990. However the changing times proved to be hard on the hotel, in 2010 one of the owners died and shortly after the family filed for bankruptcy. In April after financial struggles and hard hit by hurricane Irene the hotel closed her doors for good. In June of the same year the owners received numerous violations for failure to remove items from the hotel after the flooding and storm damage. in some parts there was the start of demolition but others spots left untouched, most of the mattresses had been dragged out and piled in various locations. Eventually an Asian based company bought the “distressed property” for 2.4 million with plans to re-purpose the resort into a Bottling and Canning Plant for Rocky Mountain High Brands, which also seems to have failed as hundreds of pallets of the brands hemp flavored energy drinks were left all over the hotels auditorium .All in all this first part of the abandoned vacation trip was a wonderful success with a bunch of cool unexpected surprises like the panda festival that made it really memorable, there’s a bunch of photos in the more galleries tab as well as some before and after shots below (before shots credit to google images). Be sure to check out my friends youtube channel “ The need for Exploration” and stay tuned there for the videos of our adventures! Also check out this blog another photographer wrote about when she stayed at the hotel back in 2003 there are some pretty cool old photos there as well.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK2-QV2AtW3jqrwBDW4givg

https://welcometomyworld.blog/2019/01/06/the-robin-hood-wedding-crashers/?fbclid=IwAR3g-VLwgHd4vm7TVIKX_t3TL2W1-mFQtyx0Nep-I9v7R4yEmHI2qPQfiEI