The Grand Hotels of the White Mountains Online Exhibition

The Grand Hotels of the White Mountains Online Exhibition
Grand Hotels of the White Mountains postcard

 

 


Curated by Bryant F. Tolles, Jr., Cynthia Robinson, Rebecca Enman

Explore The Grand Hotels of the White Mountains, featuring the origins, development, and history of New Hampshire’s grand resort hotels. The creative visual journey includes paintings, photographs, various artifacts, and stories of the people who visited and worked at these gracious establishments. Special focus for the exhibition are the four surviving hotels: the Omni Mount Washington Resort, Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa, Eagle Mountain House & Golf Club, and The Wentworth Hotel.

Explore the Online Exhibit


Walk through the Grand Hotels Exhibition

  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details
  • Museum of the White Mountain Hotel Exhibit walk-through details

The White Mountains of New Hampshire have long attracted  tourists  wanting to escape growing urbanization and enjoy  spectacular scenery, clean air, and a slower paced lifestyle.

 The expansion of the rail service in the 1850s opened up the once remote wilderness to tourism, making travel easier and more comfortable. New grand resort hotels were built to satisfy fashionable upper class tourists seeking exclusivity, ambiance, indoor and outdoor entertainments, and the chance to be seen and admired.

During the golden age of the Grand Resort Hotels in the White Mountain region, between 1880-1910, there were approximately 30 hotels that could be considered “Grand”, meaning those hotels that provided room for 200+ guests, with elegantly styled dining rooms, parlors, and lobby spaces, incorporating recreation activities and events that targeted an elite class of tourists. These gracious establishments cultivated exclusive worlds apart where the honored guests could truly re-create themselves. 

Chronology of the Grand Hotels

Grand Resort hotels timeline

 

Grand Survivors

Of these many hotels that flourished during the period, only four have survived and are still in operation today.  

The Omni Mount Washington Resort, Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa, Eagle Mountain House and Golf Club, and The Wentworth Hotel, Jackson NH have continued to evolve and respond to New Hampshire tourist needs and trends, redefining what a “Grand Hotel” can mean in today’s culture. 

Eagle Mountain house and golf fact sheet
Mountain View Grand fact sheet
Omni Mount Washington resort fact sheet
Wentworth Hotel fact sheet

Cartoon of people dancing in a hotel ballroom
 
From “White Mountains of New Hampshire,” published 1912.

In the United States, the hotel first appeared in the 1700s and were expanded versions of a tavern or highway inn. As the railroad made travel more prevalent and business grew, larger and more specialized hotels were built, which had space for dining halls, ballrooms, and recreation.

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the earliest travelers began coming to the White Mountains in small but significant numbers. Explorers, writers, scientists and adventurers, drawn to the beauty, grandeur and natural curiosities of the region, pursued scientific, spiritual and aesthetic inquiry as well as outdoor activity. As transportation improved, farmers and merchants settled in the wilderness environment, moving their produce and wares within or through the mountains. By the 1820s, they were joined by ‘a class whose purpose in coming was entirely one of pleasure and recreation.’ These early excursionists were the forerunners of the summer tourists and visitors who would populate the grant resort hotels of the region after the Civil War.

-Bryant F. Tolles, Jr. The Grand Resort Hotels of the White Mountains: A Vanishing Architectural Legacy. David R Godine. 1998.

The Evolution of the Hotels

Many of the grand hotels developed piecemeal over time, evolving from humble private residences or small inns and hotels. Over the years, they were continually renovated, expanded, and even rebuilt in order to accommodate changing needs and fashions.

Plymouth’s Pemigewasset House began as a small tavern in 1800. By 1859, the original building had tripled in size, and offered guests a grand dining room and its own railroad depot.

First Pemigewasset House. Courtesy of Plymouth Historical Society
First Pemigewasset House. Courtesy of Plymouth Historical Society
Second Pemigewasset House.Courtesy of Plymouth Historical Society
Second Pemigewasset House.Courtesy of Plymouth Historical Society
Pemigewasset House fact sheet

The Balsams Hotel also began as a small summer inn that first opened just after the Civil War. It was later purchased by Henry Hale, who set about converting it into a grand resort hotel by building additions and introducing luxurious amenities. The addition of the Hampshire House in 1918 doubled the hotel’s capacity to 400 guests.

Balsams Hotel fireproofing drawing
Balsams hotel construction

Addition of the Hampshire House, a new fireproof wing at The Balsams Hotel.
Museum of the White Mountains, Barba collection

Unlike many other grand hotels, the Mount Washington Hotel, now known as The Omni Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, was designed and built from its inception to be a grand hotel. Built between 1900 and 1902 in the Spanish Renaissance revival architecture style, 250 Italian craftsmen were brought to Bretton Woods to construct the hotel.

Foundations of new hotel [Mount Washington Hotel] near Mount Pleasant House, White Mountains, N.H. Courtesy of Library of Congress
Foundations of new hotel [Mount Washington Hotel] near Mount Pleasant House, White Mountains, N.H. Courtesy of Library of Congress

 

Experiencing the Grand

The successful models were based on a “pay one price” “American Plan” for room, meals, activities, and amenities, and incorporated excellent business management, effective marketing, outstanding facilities maintenance, and flexible social/recreational programming. 

As insular worlds of their own, the grand hotels sought to offer all the comforts and luxuries that visitors required during their vacation in the mountains. Guests often stayed for weeks or even the entire summer, and so the hotels were furnished with popular indoor amusements and conveniences to keep their guests entertained. Guests enjoyed inviting lobbies, lounges, reading and writing rooms, and music salons, all adorned with rich furnishings and elegant decorations.

Pemigewasset House lobby. Courtesy of Plymouth Historical Society
Pemigewasset House lobby. Courtesy of Plymouth Historical Society
Maplewood Hotel, 1913. Courtesy of Vincent Lunetta
Maplewood Hotel, 1913. Courtesy of Vincent Lunetta
Kearsarge House writing room. Museum of the White Mountains, Hamilton collection
Kearsarge House writing room. Museum of the White Mountains, Hamilton collection

Recreation

Mount Washington Hotel Postcard
Mount Washington Hotel broadside, undated. Courtesy of Bryant F. Tolles, Jr.

There were also endless opportunities for outdoor sport, relaxation, and entertainment at the grand hotels, which sought to meet their guests’ every need. Guests enjoyed hiking, golf, bowling, baseball, croquet, billiards, fishing, bicycling, horseback riding, polo, boating, archery, and badminton, plus promenades, coaching parades, dances, dinners, and musical performances.

The grand hotels typically operated between May and September. However, new opportunities for outdoor recreation arose in 1926, when the Second Eagle Mountain House in Jackson was equipped with steam heat, enabling the hotel to offer year-round services and opportunities such as cross-country skiing. 

Balsams Hotel advertisement
Balsams Hotel advertisement. Museum of the White Mountains, Newton collection
Final round for Stickney Cup, Mount Pleasant golf links.
Final round for Stickney Cup, Mount Pleasant golf links. Courtesy of Library of Congress
Dancing at Mountain View
Courtesy of the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa
People Fishing at The Balsams Hotel
Fishing at The Balsams Hotel. Museum of the White Mountains, Newton collection

The grand hotels each maintained their own livery stables, stagecoaches, and mountain wagons, providing transportation to popular tourist sites, including day trips to the Summit and Tip-Top Houses on Mount Washington. Several of the larger hotels had their own on-site train depots for even greater convenience.

Fabyan House horse wagon
Fabyan House wagon. Museum of the White Mountains, Hamilton collection
Day Trip to Mount Washington Excursion broadsides
Excursion broadsides. Courtesy of Bryant F. Tolles, Jr.
Day Trip to Mount Washington Excursion broadsides
Excursion broadsides. Courtesy of Bryant F. Tolles, Jr.

Dining

Guests enjoyed taking their daily meals in elegantly styled dining rooms where they could socialize and be seen and admired by other fashionable tourists. The cuisine was excellent, menus extensive, and the table service was kept to a high standard.

Maplewood Hotel dining room, 1913.
Maplewood Hotel dining room, 1913. Courtesy of Vincent Lunetta
 
Profile House dining room.
Profile House dining room. Museum of the White Mountains, Hamilton collection
Mount Washington Hotel dining room.
Mount Washington Hotel dining room. Museum of the White Mountains, Noel collection

New menus were printed daily, and meals featured fresh fruits, vegetables, milk, cream and butter, which was furnished by nearby farms owned by the hotels. Children and servants dined separately at specific times during the day.

Sinclair House menu cover
Hotel menus. Museum of the White Mountains, Hamilton collection
Profile House Menu
Pemigewasset House menu
Sinclair House menu

Marketing

Pleasant House floorplan
Pleasant House floorplan

Museum of the White Mountains, Hamilton collection.

These first and second floor plans from a circa 1885 booklet advertising the Mount Pleasant House in Carroll, NH allowed guests to select their rooms sight unseen.

Taking full advantage of new techniques in graphic reproduction, these enterprises, in their promotional publications, press and advertising, sought to capture the public’s imagination by presenting carefully chosen, orchestrated and packaged stylized images. The rhetoric of the printed word and pictorial representation, when combined with the realism of the building and site, proved a convincing and effective educational vehicle, drawing the unconverted to the grand hotel mystique.

Bryant F. Tolles, Jr. The Grand Resort Hotels of the White Mountains: A Vanishing Architectural Legacy. David R Godine. 1998.

Promotional literature display from hotels
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917
  • Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917

Balsams Hotel employee photo album, circa 1913-1917. Museum of the White Mountains, Barba collection.

In order to keep the daily operations of these self-contained resort communities running smoothly, an enormous staff of several hundred employees was required. Employees came from all over to work as cooks, bellmen, chamber girls, waitresses, laundresses, hostlers, nurses, drivers, carpenters, and more during the summer hotel season.

Employees who interacted with guests, such as waitresses, had to follow strict instructions regarding their behavior, appearance, and how they spoke to guests during mealtimes.

Maplewood Club Dining Room Rules, 1940
Maplewood Club Dining Room Rules, 1940
Maplewood Club Dining Room Rules, 1940
Maplewood Club Dining Room Rules, 1940

Maplewood Club Dining Room Rules, 1940. Courtesy of Bethlehem Heritage Society.

The Profile House in Franconia Notch provided employment for hundreds of men and women who came from across Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire to work at the hotel during the summer season. In 1896, the hotel published a list of all its 179 employees, their names, job titles, and hometowns. The list included 65 waitresses, 2 stage drivers, 18 laundresses, and 7 bellmen.  See the entire brochure courtesy of WhiteMountainHistory.org and Bryant Tolles.

Like many of the grand hotels, much of the food at The Balsams in Dixville Notch was supplied by the hotel’s own farm, including fresh fruits, vegetables, and eggs. Their herd of Jersey cows furnished milk, cream, and butter; freshly caught trout from Lake Gloriette was served daily at breakfast and other meals.

Farm that supplied the Balsams Hotel
Farm that supplied the Balsams Hotel, undated. Museum of the White Mountains, Barba collection
Profile House grapery, undated.
Profile House grapery, undated.

Grand Personalities

The grand hotels were owned and managed by a variety of “grand personalities.” Some were wealthy tycoons of industry – others were farmers who stumbled by accident into the hotel business. All were celebrated for the hospitality that they offered to their guests.

Oscar G. Barron biography sheet
William and Mary Jane Dodge biography sheet
Henry S. Hale biography sheet
Joseph and Carolyn Stickney biography sheet
Neil Tillotson biography sheet
Marshall C. Wentworth biography sheet

Artists-in-Residence

During the second half of the 19th century it became popular for artists to spend the summer at a grand hotel, where they set up their own studio and invited guests to view and purchase their works. One of the most well-known is Frank Henry Shapleigh (1842-1906), who was the artist-in-residence at the Crawford House for sixteen years, from 1877 to 1893. Shapleigh’s original Crawford House artist-in-residence studio still stands today and is part of Appalachian Mountain Club’s Highland Center campus.

Anna C. Freeland artist residency biography
Frank Shapleigh artist residency biography

Caddy Camps at the Hotels

For many decades, several Caddy Camps serving the Maplewood Hotel, the Mount Washington Hotel, The Balsams, and others, brought boys from all over New England, including inner-city Boston to the White Mountains. For those in charge of a few of the camps, the purpose was not only to provide excellent caddy service to the hotels, but to help the boys grow and develop. There is evidence that these caddy camp experiences promoted significant healthy education and growth for some of the boys, particularly for the inner-city children of immigrant parents.

Vincent Lunetta

Maplewood Caddy Camp.
Maplewood Caddy Camp. Courtesy of Vincent Lunetta.

Grand Service: The Story of Grace Bickford

Grace Bickford was born on December 19, 1872 and lived in New Hampton, NH as a child. While working as an elementary school teacher, Grace began spending her summers working in tourist hotels in the White Mountains. Her first such experience was working as a “table girl” at Maplewood Cottage, a grand hotel near Bethlehem in the summer of 1895. This pattern was repeated when she secured a summer job in 1897 at Wentworth Hall where she worked as a table girl, maid, and would help assisting in the hotel office.

A cut-out photo of a youthful Ms. Bickford sewing from her early years at Wentworth Hall.
A cut-out photo of a youthful Ms. Bickford sewing from her early years at Wentworth Hall. The image had been cut out from a larger group picture featuring 10-12 girls sewing; it is very likely each girl wanted her own image. Courtesy of James Sanford

Because of her talents, Grace continued to thrive in the fast paced world of hospitality, she was able to rise from the status of waitress and part-time office assistant at Wentworth Hall to that of a person of responsibility within the hotel organization. In a short time she became the trusted personal secretary to the hotel manager, Berry, and owner, General Wentworth. Grace became the editor of the hotel’s weekly newsletter Chit Chat, and an affable hostess attending to the needs of guests and rubbing elbows with distinguished entertainers at the hotel.

I don’t know what will become of me. The people here are spoiling me. I put on my new silk waist with my black shirt. It is only the second time I have worn the waist. Well when I went into the dining room – there was a chorus of exclamations. “Oh, how pretty,” “How sweet she looks,” and one man said, “Either you are sweeter every time I see you or I am falling in love with you.”

Now, Mama, don’t be shocked – There’s nothing to it or he would not have said it before a room full of people. Well, of course the sense of approval of my appearance made my dinner taste very good.

Grace Bickford in a letter to her mother, dated August 1900

It is unclear how closely Grace was associated with Wentworth Hall, in particular, after 1900, she apparently continued as personal assistant for Wentworth and Berry in their hotel operations for several more years.

The Wentworth Hall “Table Girls”, circa 1897. Grace Bickford is second from the right, back row, looking toward the right of photo.
The Wentworth Hall “Table Girls”, circa 1897. Grace Bickford is second from the right, back row, looking toward the right of photo. The dining room manager Mr. Brock is sitting in front. Courtesy of James Sanford.

In their heyday, the grand hotels catered to fashionable upper-class tourists who sought exclusivity, ambiance, indoor and outdoor entertainments, and the chance to be seen and admired.  Guests of other ethnicities, religions, and backgrounds therefore, were not welcome to mix with the wealthy, white, Christian guests who frequented the hotels.

Many of us look back with nostalgia on the former Grand Hotel era, and there is certainly much to celebrate. That said, there are also pervasive stories of ethnic, racial, religious, and social discrimination as part of the hotels’ culture. What today we might find shocking, at the time and even into the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, such behaviors would have been considered to be ‘part of our way of life in the Live Free or Die State.’

Vincent Lunetta

An undated article in the Salem Observer (which published between 1823 and 1919) reported the following visit by Mr. Gangooly to the Glen House:

Mr. Gangooly, the converted Brahmin, now on a visit to this country to observe the workings of Christianity under free institutions, happened along at the Glen House in the White Mountains, the other day, and was there refused entertainment on account of the dark color of his skin! … He may have thought there was no ‘caste’ prejudice in India worse than the color-phobia of the Glen House.

Undated article. Salem Observer.

This was not an isolated incidence, even later in the 20th century. In the 1920s and 30s, grand resorts that discriminated against Jews were common. These hotels were known as “restricted” hotels. When a person with a Jewish sounding last name tried to book a room, they were told that the hotel was full.

The Wentworth Hotel in Jackson was one such “restricted” hotel, which did not allow Jewish guests while owned by Marshall Wentworth. When Nathan Amster, a wealthy Jewish business man from New York, tried to check in and was turned away, he subsequently purchased the hotel and changed the policy so that only Jewish guests were welcome.

Exhibit of the Maplewood Club's brochures

The Maplewood Club, which organized in 1923, was similarly unwelcoming to Jewish members with a membership that was “entirely Gentile.” Their club brochure states:

Maplewood appeals to patrons with cultivated tastes who prefer refinement to ostentation and extravagance, no tubercular or other person against whom there is a reasonable moral, social, or physical objection being admitted. As a summer resort for congenial persons, the genuinely courteous atmosphere gives one the impression of being a guest in a most delightful home where daily pleasures may be molded to conform with one’s own desires.

Maplewood Club brochure, circa 1923. Courtesy of Vincent Lunetta.

The Maplewoood, White Mountains postcard

If you have a personal story about racism and discrimination at the grand hotels, share it with us by emailing museum.wm@plymouth.edu

Fire is an unfortunate common thread through the history of the Grand Hotels. This was a period before mandatory fire prevention systems, while construction was mostly wood frame. Many of the hotels had to be rebuilt more than once. By the 1900s however, many grand hotels and smaller area hotels ended permanently as businesses due to fires.

Profile House fact sheet
Aerial view of the Profile House before it was destroyed by fire.
Aerial view of the Profile House before it was destroyed by fire. Courtesy of Sugar Hill Historical Museum

 

 The burning of the Profile House, August 2, 1923
 The burning of the Profile House, August 2, 1923
 The burning of the Profile House, August 2, 1923

The burning of the Profile House, August 2, 1923. Courtesy of Sugar Hill Historical Museum

The Crawford House burned and was rebuilt twice during its long history. Like many of the grand hotels, it struggled through financial uncertainty in the 20th century before finally closing its doors in 1975. It burned just a few years later.

Crawford House fact sheet
The Crawford House just before it burned.
The Crawford House just before it burned. Dick Hamilton photo. Courtesy of WhiteMountainHistory.org
Burning of the Crawford House, 1977.
Burning of the Crawford House, 1977
Burning of the Crawford House, 1977
Burning of the Crawford House, 1977

Burning of the Crawford House, 1977. Dick Hamilton photos. Courtesy of WhiteMountainHistory.org

Between 1851 and 1967, four hotels operated on the site of the Glen House at the base of the Mount Washington Auto Road; tragically all were destroyed by fire, most recently in 1967. On September 12, 2018 history was made with the opening of the fifth Glen House in Gorham.

Glen House fact sheet

A Changing Tourist Market

By the first decade of this century, however, American grand resort hotels, particularly those in very rural settings, had already peaked and signs of imminent decline were starting to appear. Ever more professionalized and standardized than a quarter century before, the hotel business was being conducted on an increasingly larger scale, requiring greater management expertise and skill, and vast amounts of capital.  As resort hotels became more costly to operate, the burden of this expense was passed to the consumer; over time many hotels priced themselves out of existence, eroding the time-honored myth that they functioned solely for their guests’ personal enjoyment. In a curious, almost perverted way the grand hotels were victims of their own success – as ‘insulated stage sets for ordered social contacts and the display of wealth’ their appeal remained for the a selected few, but their broader, largely upper-middle-class clientele gradually slipped away to engage in other leisure-time life patterns and pursuits.

Bryant F. Tolles, Jr. The Grand Resort Hotels of the White Mountains: A Vanishing Architectural Legacy. David R Godine. 1998.

One hotel that managed to hang on through economic uncertainty was the Mount Washington Hotel. This was due in large part to its being selected to host the Bretton Woods Conference, officially known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference.

Mount Washington Hotel. Museum of the White Mountains, Noel collection
Mount Washington Hotel. Museum of the White Mountains, Noel collection

The Monetary Conference was a gathering of delegates from 44 nations that met from July 1 to 22, 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to agree upon a series of new rules for the post-WWII international monetary system. The two major accomplishments of the conference were the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).

The Conference provided boost to the hotel’s economy and allowed the owners to make much needed upgrades to the hotel’s infrastructure. The publicity generated by the Conference also boosted the hotel’s popularity over the following years.

The Legacy of the Grand Hotels

 

Maplewood Hotel, 1913 illustration
Maplewood Hotel, 1913. Courtesy of Vincent Lunetta

By the beginning of the 20th century, the appeal of the grand resort hotel was beginning to fade. With the advent of the automobile, tourists who had once stayed for weeks and even entire summers at a single hotel could more easily travel to multiple destinations, and economic changes meant that many could no longer afford to stay at luxury hotels. Others sought increased privacy, independence, and family time, leading to the popularity of seasonal summer cottages and camps. By the 1960s many of the once grand hotels had faded into obsolescence and had been demolished or destroyed by fire.

Over time, the remaining grand hotels reorganized and reinvented. Many made the transition from summer only businesses to year-round enterprises. The impact of this change was felt in the local and regional economy and work force.

The Wentworth Hotel, Jackson, NH current lobby view
Courtesy of The Wentworth Hotel, Jackson, NH
Eagle Mountain House & Golf Club current porch view
Courtesy of Eagle Mountain House & Golf Club
Front view of the Omni hotel in the summer
Courtesy of Omni Mount Washington Resort
Two people in the Mountain View Grand & Spa tower
Courtesy of Mountain View Grand & Spa

The few grand hotels that still exist, plus their smaller counterparts, have managed to successfully adapt to the changing tourist market by virtue of excellent business management, effective marketing, maintenance of facilities, and diversified programming. Today, their unique appeal rests with their historic traditions, ambiance, aesthetics, amenities, and architecture – plus the beauty of their surroundings, which continues to draw tourists to the White Mountains – and to the grand hotels.

Included in The Grand Hotels of the White Mountains exhibition was the work of Plymouth State University students engaged in the business capstone project. Their research spans the context of the industry environment in our state and the strategies of the Grand Hotels of the White Mountains.

Display for a Plymouth business students capstone project

Dear visitor,

PSU business students are delighted to share their analyses, research findings and recommendations on New Hampshire’s Grand Hotels!

The students have used this exhibit as a way to showcase their excellent skills as young professionals. Their materials reflect their knowledge on industry and competitive frameworks, functional areas of business and strategy.

An integral part of their business capstone course, the students used this opportunity to hone their abilities as ethical and effective decision-makers and business professionals. In their materials, the students have generated best practices and solutions for businesses.

Sincerely,

The students in BU4220 Strategic Management classes, Spring 2019, under the guidance of Professor Roxana Wright.

Capstone project hotel business plan overview
Capstone project for grand hotel uses

The students have used this exhibit as a way to showcase their excellent skills as young professionals. Their materials reflect their knowledge on industry and competitive frameworks, functional areas of business and strategy. An integral part of their business capstone course, the students used this opportunity to hone their abilities as ethical and effective decision-makers and business professionals. In their materials, the students have generated best practices and solutions for businesses.

With their contribution to the exhibit, the students provided business analyses documents and artifacts on:

Plymouth capstone projects display
  • industry competitiveness and disruption;
  • resources, capabilities and core competencies of the Grand Hotels of the White Mountains;
  • business model analyses (including an analysis of the all-inclusive business model);
  • strategy analysis and identification of strategies that make a NH Grand Hotel successful; and
  • evaluations of the impact of these hotels on the state’s overall hotel industry, economy and tourism, and other businesses.

Class Presentations

The classes also created presentations of their work that included recommendations for hotel administrations to use to address the next generation of guests. A selection of these presentations are available below:

Finance

Finance student capstone project deck page
Finance student capstone project deck page
Finance student capstone project deck slide
Finance student capstone project deck slide

Ideal Customers

Ideal customers student capstone project deck slide
Ideal customers student capstone project deck slide
Ideal customers student capstone project deck slide
Ideal customers student capstone project deck slide
Ideal customers student capstone project deck slide
Ideal customers student capstone project deck slide

Marketing

Marketing student capstone project deck slide
Marketing student capstone project deck slide
Marketing student capstone project deck slide
Marketing student capstone project deck slide
Marketing student capstone project deck slide
Marketing student capstone project deck slide