You don’t have to love politics or history to appreciate the impressive restoration of the century-old resort hotels in French Lick and neighboring West Baden.
But knowing more of the lore that sprung up around the locales that once served as luxurious hangouts for a generation of gamblers, gangsters, politicians, and celebrities makes it all the more fun.
That’s what I discovered when I returned to the French Lick Resort — which now includes both hotels under an umbrella management — on a recent weekend with my youngest child in tow. Now 20, he’d been to the French Lick Springs Hotel as a toddler, back when it was aging badly, though faring better than its crumbling cousin, the West Baden Springs Hotel, located a mile away.
I’d been back to both hotels since they were transformed by the $500 million makeover that was set into motion 15 years ago and rapidly accelerated in 2004, after the Indiana General Assembly okayed riverboat gambling in the landlocked town of French Lick.
But I hadn’t truly appreciated the rollicking romance of what’s now a 3,000-acre resort destination (www.frenchlick.com) in rural southern Indiana until a local storyteller with Indiana Landmarks started a tour of the French Lick Resort Hotel with the words: “This place was once wild and crazy.”
French Lick native Dan Clark uttered those words just moments before we entered the hotel’s glazed and gilded grand lobby — featuring $1 million worth of restored gold leaf — and stood awestruck under a stunning series of ceiling murals depicting mythological characters from the sea.
Had I fallen to the floor at that moment, splayed out on my back, I likely wouldn’t have been the first. Though alcohol was officially banned in the hotel in its Prohibition-era heyday, there was plenty of liquor flowing to fuel the illicit gambling and other decadent living that flourished in the area during the 1920s.
That’s not why the French Lick hotel nor West Baden Springs Hotel sprung up, opening just a few months apart in 1901 and 1902. The ornate, Beaux Arts-style hotels were first built to attract visitors in search of the healing powers of the mineral springs in the area. Exploiting a turn-of-the century health craze among the wealthy, the hotels billed their miracle waters as good for sipping and dipping.
Discovering how the hotels rose and fell in grandeur — a history filled with stories of corrupt politicians, licentious living by the high and mighty, and characters ranging from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Groucho Marx — is worth the long and winding drive to get there. The resort is miles off an interstate highway, but the two-lane roads you’ll have to travel should put you in the mood to slow down to enjoy the elements of a long-lost past.
There are several ways to do that, thanks to the combination of genius and generosity that led to the revival of the resort’s two grand old hotels. The story of their comeback is many-chaptered, but heroes of the tale include Indiana Landmarks (www.indianalandmarks.org), a heralded non-profit organization that specializes in helping private owners find profitable ways to reuse historic structures.
Other heroes include the late Bloomington, Ind., billionaire Bill Cook and his wife Gayle, who took an expensive leap of faith in 1996 to help Indiana Landmarks begin to restore the West Baden hotel, just as its magnificent, stand-alone domed atrium (once declared the Eighth Wonder of the World) was collapsing under the weight of decades of neglect.
Before the West Baden hotel came back to life, Indiana Landmarks offered ghost tours of the place, because it was said to be haunted. Now the organization offers monthly ghost-guided evening tours of the West Baden hotel during its peak season (May to October).
The Twilight Tours ($14 for adults, $8 for children) feature characters from the hotel’s grand past. Among them: Chicago crime boss “Big Jim” Colosimo, who married his second and much younger wife on the hotel’s expansive front steps; the seance-holding spiritualist Mademoiselle Louise, who read the palms of hotel guests in her lobby shop; and Walter Hagen, winner of the 1924 PGA Championship staged at a French Lick golf course that’s now part of the current resort’s multiple golf offerings.
If you can’t get away for a Twilight Tour, the daily tours ($10 for adults, $5 for children) at both hotels are just as enchanting, especially if you’re lucky enough to fall in with someone like Dan Clark, the guide who delighted my tour group with tales from long ago of hotel “bagmen” delivering suitcases of cash to the backdoor of the governor’s mansion. How else could the little neighboring towns of French Lick and West Baden support 13 casinos back in the days when gambling was illegal? You’ll figure out the answer when Clark tells you the roles played by the Democrat and Republican party bosses at the time.
Standing alone, sans the history, the resort’s hotels and the multitude of amenities they offer — from spa treatments to casino gambling — are enough to lure visitors and keep them entertained. Joe Vezzoso, a native Hoosier who serves as vice president of resort operations, guarantees that with his cordial mingling with guests and staff.
But it’s the heritage of the hotels that gives the resort its irresistible charm. Some might find it all a little too quaint; both hotels, protected in varying degrees as historic landmarks, can evoke a bit of a musty past. Yet if you love stories of characters who give a place a sense of life, long after those characters are gone, make sure you check out the hotels’ historic tours after you check in.
Maureen Hayden is statehouse bureau chief for the Tribune-Star. She can be reached at maureen.hayden@indianamediagroup.com.
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