The owners of Bayfield’s 145-year-old Albion Hotel say that it’s been overwhelming at times, but the work to restore the building is progressing well after its roof collapsed on December 8, 2024.
Jeff Graham has owned and operated the Albion Hotel since 2018 with his wife Lee, “When we first came in here you wouldn’t even have known the roof collapsed - there was no water really coming in, the drywall wasn’t broke or anything like that,” he remarked.
“It was just over the last few months of all the snow that we had, and then the bricklayers were rebuilding the outside and we had to have heat on. So, the snow was constantly kind of melting, and it had nowhere to go except for right back into the building.”
Graham has spent more time than he’d like to admit over the past couple months emptying buckets of melted snow that was leaking into the Albion, but the installation of a new roof in the final week of February has made the Albion watertight again.
Graham believes the final brickwork and roof work will be done in the next couple weeks and then the interior restoration can begin in earnest.
“We’re drying out the building, [we] need some moisture tests and then once the moisture tests all pass, we spray for mold, and then we can start thinking about our interior rebuild,” said Graham.
Of course the million dollar question is when the Albion - a staple on Bayfield’s Main Street for more than a century - can be open for business again. Graham said he can’t promise an opening date just yet.
“I don’t have any timeline on when we’re going to open. We’re pushing to open as soon as we can, but I don’t want to open until everything’s done. I want to have a grand opening instead of - you know - a half-finished type of thing,” said Graham.
The owner plans to do much of the work himself, alongside local contractors.
Of course, refurbishing a 145-year-old hotel and restaurant back to the studs was not how Graham planned to spend this year - especially after overcoming shutdowns during the pandemic. However, Jeff and his wife Lee are resilient, and vow to return the Albion to what it was before the roof came crashing down in December.
“This is our chance to kind of be the caretakers of the building, and make sure that it stands for another 200 years,” said Graham.
