HHL was an architectural advisor consultant for Virginia-based Glave & Holmes Architecture, who was engaged by the Institution to prepare a long-range Master Plan upgrade concept for this important historic hotel, a center point of the historic campus.

The Athenaeum Hotel is a rare survival of the resort hotel building type dating from the late nineteenth century. Many such elaborate frame hotels were built across the country as part of resort and railroad development plans in the late nineteenth-century. The historic grounds of Chautauqua Institution boast a number of architectural landmarks; places that are as important to the history of this storied community as they are to the present-day mission and program. The grounds and its many landmarks are also regarded as sacred in the minds of the community members — both those who can trace their connections across multiple generations to the founding of Chautauqua in 1874, and those who are among the newest members of our special family-oriented community.

The generation and completion of this Program Master Planning & Conceptual Design Study was an important first step in enabling the Institution to realize the full potential and vision for a modern version, of the historic, 150-room Athenaeum Hotel. The proposed concept envisioned an updated patron arrival and exterior circulation patterns, renovations to the lobby, common areas, dining room, bar and banquet facilities, including complete renovation of food service and support spaces. Administration spaces were relocated, consolidated and improved, while significant improvements proposed to the guest rooms – unifying the theme and raised to contemporary hospitality standards. Significant consideration was given for structural and building system upgrades, accessibility enhancements, and improvements to the building envelope to possibly enable year-round occupancy. The long abandoned central tower was also studied to possibly create opportunities for special patron and campus uses.