Rediscovering home: The Bellevue Hotel gets a new life
The iconic lady on the hill is full of life once again.
Not hotel guests this time, but a family of seven.
The Bellevue Hotel had served guests from its perch on the hill along Mullan Road and the Milwaukee Railroad since 1908. The doors were shut in 2001.
The visual progress injecting life back into the landmark, after years of erratic remodeling, has captured the community’s attention.
“People are always asking about it,” said Isaiah McGuffey, who owns the property with his wife, Becky.
As McGuffey explains it, the grand dame fell into his family’s hands about four years ago. McGuffey entered into a partnership with the former owner, a woman from California, to remodel the unit just east of the main structure. The project went well and the former owner suggested that McGuffey might want to purchase the entire property.
“It kind of bewitched me,” McGuffey said. “It was too expensive to fix, and too expensive to tear down. The only economic solution was to let it rot.”
He could not let that happen, so he purchased the Bellevue and is methodically making it a home. That was the only way to save the building. Living there has enabled him to fix it up on “our budget and our time.”
“We would have to destroy it to make it a hotel again.”
McGuffey first planned to make it into a bunk house for travelling crews working in the area.
But the scope of the remodeling ahead made that impractical, so the McGuffey family has moved into a work in progress. “It was the only way to do it. It’s such a large project.”
“The people at church wonder if we have moved into a mansion or a crumbling old building. We are somewhere in between,” McGuffey quipped.
McGuffey, who owns a property management company, said the Bellevue would not work for short-term rentals such as Airbnb or Vrbo, because people do not want to share a bathroom. Also, the old hotel “is a little too quirky and too large.” He said the it could be converted into a “bed and breakfast in the traditional sense.” He and his wife may do so once the kids have grown and the remodeling done.
The McGuffey family is keen to keep the original floor plan. “If (any portion of the structure) is usable we return it to its 1908 condition.” The children like that the rooms upstairs were ready to be occupied with a little fresh paint and unique ceiling tiles made of a kind of Styrofoam. However, there were “no windows upstairs last year. The pigeons could fly right through.”
Is the Bellevue haunted? Well, maybe. The bedroom of McGuffey’s oldest daughter, Piper, is thought to house one of the wispy characters. Piper said, “Everybody says my room is haunted, but I haven’t had any encounters ... yet.”
I was excited to hear during the tour McGuffey graciously provided that the building is generally structurally sound, including the field rock foundation. No water got within eight feet of the foundation. The former owner wanted to bring the building up to current building codes, which would have required jacking up the building and putting rebar in the foundation.
“That’s where the rumor started that the foundation needed to be replaced.”
McGuffey has fixed the roof where it leaked, but the roofs over the porches that offer great views of Superior, perhaps, may be his greatest challenge. He does not claim any experience as a contractor. McGuffey’s “only skill is watching YouTube.” He moved to Superior with his parents in 2001. His father worked as the law enforcement officer for the Forest Service. McGuffey worked in Alaska in commercial fishing, and also as a supervisor at Tricon for 10 years.
He has installed a diversified heating system, ranging from wood pellets to two giant heat pumps that also provide air conditioning. The system is something to see.
The Bellevue was remodeled in 1961 after Art Jensen purchased it, according to Herman Berneking, who worked on the remodeling. Plumbing was put in, which required a drop ceiling to cover the pipes as well as electric lines. McGuffey has restored parts of the first floor to the original ceiling. The hotel was inherited by Jensen’s daughter, Norma Quinn, who I recall managed the Bellevue.
The Mineral County Historical Society has photographs of the Bellevue being built, but it does not say by whom.
A search of the land records at the Mineral County Clerk’s Office, with an assist from the Flying S Title Company, reveal that the property was originally owned by P.J. and Addie Charette (spelled without the “e” in the records). The Charettes transferred the property to Arthur P. Johnston in 1909, who turned right around and deeded it to Mrs. Georgia Martell. She and Albert Martell owned several Superior properties at the time. About two years later, Martell deeded it to Mrs. Laura Guimont, who transferred it to Augusta Olson in 1929. The Olson family sold it Arthur and Harold Jensen on March 14, 1948.
That a local hotel “magnate” owned the property when it was built gives credence to McGuffey’s theory that it might have been railroad related and was meant to serve upscale clientele. Both railroads had passenger trains at the time. The first floor had only four large suites, his remodeling has revealed. The hotel was constructed with material that was probably imported from back East in 1908, including tongue and groove subfloors.
Arthur Jensen’s grandson, Mitch Stelling, a classmate of mine who fondly remembers holiday dinners in the building, recalls: “Before Interstate 90 bypassed the Superior historic business district [in the early 1960s), the Bellevue was a popular respite for the weary traveler and often had no vacancies. In later years, it even advertised that travelers would receive ‘Free Color TV.’”
Further, the Milwaukee Railroad decided to build its Pacific Extension that traversed Montana in 1905. Construction began in 1906 and finished in 1909. So 1908 was a good time to build a fancy new hotel along its tracks.
The possible tie to the Milwaukee intrigued me, as my grandfather, Guy Moats, came to Superior as a foreman on the Railroad. Shana Cummings Williams, who often posts historical material, posted an article from the June 4, 1925 Mineral Independent, about an accident that injured my grandfather. Two “speeders” hit head on about seven miles west of Superior, injuring eight of the fourteen passengers. My granddad suffered a “fractured skull.” My family knew nothing of this crash. I don’t know if my dad knew, but he never talked about it.
The Milwaukee abandoned its line here in 1980.
Superior was in its heyday when I was growing up, with the two railroads and the sawmill operating at capacity . . . and the lights of the Bellevue shining above town. McGuffey sees another heyday ahead.
“I am optimistic about Superior.”
Isaiah McGuffey at the historic Bellevue Hotel in Superior.
Isaiah McGuffey at the Bellevue Hotel in Superior.