Ashland Springs Hotel celebrates centennial with ribbon-cutting, wine tasting, and time capsule with public notes
By Sydney Seymour, Ashland.news
A few dozen Ashlanders and guests of the Ashland Springs Hotel became a part of history on Saturday, Sept. 20, during the hotel’s 100th anniversary ceremony, a collaboration between the hotel and Travel Ashland.
Hotel owners Doug and Becky Neuman started the ceremony by cutting a red ribbon outside the hotel, looking forward to the next 100 years. They welcomed attendees inside the lobby for a champagne toast.
“This grande dame makes me cry,” Becky Neuman said to the crowd, raising her champagne glass. “She had been waiting for years to be brought back to life — for people to have the vision to resurrect her and give her the grandness she always had.”
Wearing pearls in deference to the “grande dame,” Becky Neuman personified the 70-room hotel with a farm-to-table restaurant, English garden and organic spa to Ashland.news as a “majestic, elegant and immortal gal who loves to celebrate.”
Inside the Crystal Room — a room full of tables draped in white cloth, walls lined with mirrors, and a chandelier from the original hotel — Katharine Cato of Travel Ashland and the Ashland Chamber of Commerce described the hotel to the crowd as a “true gem” and “key landmark of our tourism, community and history.” She credited Doug and Becky Neuman for bringing it “back to life.”
Local historian Peter Finkle invited listeners to “step into a time machine for a few minutes” as he unfolded the hotel’s history.
On Sept. 28, 1925, the Lithia Springs Hotel hosted its grand opening party, welcoming visitors who were “sure to come” for the healing Lithia water and springs in Ashland.
Five hundred local residents invested in the hotel because they believed hotel operator RW Price, who said, according to Finkle, “I have every reason to believe that Southern Oregon is some time within the very near future to be the playground of the Pacific coast.”
The nine-story hotel was the tallest structure between San Francisco and Portland for decades. But after suffering through the Great Depression and undergoing numerous remodels, the owners were bankrupt and the building was falling apart.
Reconstructing the historic hotel into an icon
In 1998, Doug and Becky Neuman bought the hotel. Following a $15 million remodeling project — that Doug Neuman told Ashland.news may now cost twice as much — the Ashland Springs Hotel reopened 25 years ago.
“When there was an opportunity to do something with this hotel, it was important because it could add so much to the town,” Doug Neuman said in his remarks, adding the Neumans wanted to ensure a rumored retirement home wasn’t built in the center of downtown instead.
Finkle quoted Becky Neuman to the audience: “I felt like the lady had been asleep for a long time and she was ready to wake up and put her party dress on. And the lady did wake up, so let’s party like it’s 1925.”
Becky Neuman thanked designers Candra Scott and Richard Anderson who said they wanted to “embrace the character of the hotel in order to design it.” Becky Neuman and Scott went to the Southern Oregon Historical Society to find out what was happening during the time the hotel was built and designed with that in mind.
“We’re just honored that we could resurrect a historic hotel. So many of them aren’t resurrected. We put the time and money in, and it prospered,” Becky Neuman said to Ashland.news. “It takes a lot of passion to resurrect historic places, but we have that.”
Memories in the ‘Grande Dame’
Attendees peeked at the items going in the centennial time capsule — hotel brochures and black and white photos dating back from 1925 — and wrote a message for the hotel, or the “Grande Dame,” to be opened in the time capsule in 2050.
Historian Finkle, who has lived in Ashland for 34 years, told Ashland.news he wrote, “Respect the past, keep hope for the future and embrace the gift of the present moment.”
Finkle continued, “That’s what we’re doing here as we celebrate 100 years of a building, of lots of lives and of a whole town.”
In 1969, when Anna Jo Gender was 13, she came to watch a Shakespeare play with her mom and stayed at the hotel, which was then the Mark Antony Motor Hotel. Inspired by her time then, Gender moved to Ashland nine years ago. Now 69, she felt “teary-eyed” to see its 100th anniversary.
Ashland City Councilor and former wedding planner Gina DuQuenne planned the hotel’s weddings from 2008 to 2017. Her grandson said the hotel looked like a wedding cake in 2008.
“She still looks like a beautiful wedding cake,” DuQuenne said to the crowd. “Hundreds of lives have changed here because they walked through the door and experienced the love and the vibe that I did when I got here. The connection that this property has will just always be close to my heart.”
Also thankful for the love within the hotel, maintenance worker Ryan Cunningham met his girlfriend — who works for the hotel’s accounting department — on shift.
“There’s a lot of employees that have met, married and had children, and they’re still together,” Cunningham said to Ashland.news. “This place has so much love — the weddings, the anniversaries, the people coming back year after year. People create lifelong memories.”
Cunningham and his “future wife,” he wrote on his note to the hotel, have picked up the nickname “Ashland 2.0” as they follow the previous generation’s footsteps.
“This was a massive project,” he continued, appreciating the undertaking Doug and Becky Neuman embraced. “And this place is really the heart of this community. We’re looking forward to the next 25 years here and even longer.”
Those unable to attend the 100th anniversary ceremony can contribute a note at any time through 2025, before the capsule is sealed. A mail slot will be available at the hotel’s front desk for dropping off notes.
Email Ashland.news Snowden intern Sydney Seymour at [email protected].
Sept. 23: Additional information originally omitted due to an editing error added.
Related stories:
2025: Ashland Springs Hotel celebrates its first 100 years (Jan. 1, 2025)
Landmark Ashland Springs Hotel under new management (March 21, 2024)
