Oregon Caves Chateau has been shuttered for 6 years. A new effort aims to bring it back (2024)

The Chateau at the Oregon Caves in southwest Oregon has been closed since 2018. Now, a group of preservation and tourism agencies is trying to rally support to fund structural improvements and reopen the historic lodge.

The six-story chateau, completed in 1934, is in the base of Cave Creek Canyon near the entrance to the Oregon Caves.

The lodge has 23 overnight rooms, a 1930′s era diner, gift store and formal dining room. It was designed by architect Gust Lium with mostly local building materials, including the lobby’s stone fireplace and the exterior siding of Port Orford cedar. Part of nearby Cave Creek actually diverts into the chateau and flows through the dining room.

The Oregon Caves Chateau is also the only lodge in the National Park System with its original, Arts & Crafts style furniture. Sue Densmore, executive director of the Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau, said the chateau’s assets include hundreds of pieces of “whimsical, rare and iconic” Monterey furniture. Known for its colorful, hand-painted Mexican floral designs, Monterey furniture was popular among movie stars in the 1930s.

Another claim to fame: The View-Master was first conceived at the chateau in 1938.

Oregon inventor William B. Gruber visited the Oregon Caves and brought his own unique version of a stereo camera to capture the cavern’s interior. His invention used two Kodak Bantam Specials mounted together on a tripod.

Oregon postcard publisher Harold J. Graves happened to be visiting the caves at the same time and was curious about Gruber’s double camera. That evening over dinner at the chateau, the new friends devised plans for the View-Master. The device was introduced at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.

In 1987, the Oregon Caves Chateau received a National Historic Landmark designation. It’s one of only 17 such sites in Oregon.

But over the years, the chateau struggled to meet modern hotel needs. Densmore said too many cell phones plugged in at the same time would knock out electricity to the whole building. The six-story lodge had no elevator to assist guests with mobility needs.

In 2018, the chateau closed for an $8.6 million project to update wiring and plumbing and bring the building up to Americans with Disability Act standards.

Densmore said the Friends initially planned to contribute an additional $4 million toward the project, specifically toward preservation of the lodge’s original doors and furniture and reopening the lodge’s balconies.

But by 2020, the project to update the chateau had exposed bigger problems with the building’s structural foundation.

An additional $4.5 million was allocated by the National Park Service for “an immediate stabilization project,” Densmore said, “working to protect it from the elements and decrease any further degradation until additional funding is secured.”

And while the immediate stabilization work continues, plans to reopen the chateau have stalled.

On Thursday, a coalition of groups held a media briefing to drum up support for the funding. They represented the Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau, Travel Southern Oregon, the National Parks Conservation Association, Restore Oregon, Visit Grants Pass, and the Illinois Valley Chamber of Commerce, which serves the towns of Cave Junction, Wilderville and Kerby.

And how much more funding is needed? The panel during Thursday’s briefing didn’t provide an estimate. The National Park Service website states only that “numerous structural issues were discovered in the building that require significant work to correct.”

“We don’t have the number,” Densmore said. “We are working on creating the number.”

Suffice to say, it’s a lot. Millions.

So many millions, the Friends and National Park Service are looking at ways to break up the stabilization project into phases.

Densmore did say the Friends hope to raise $20 million toward that first phase of the project for exterior stabilization of the building. She’s hopeful that a show of community support for the chateau will place its preservation higher on the National Park Service to-do list.

Despite the plural name, the Oregon Caves – nicknamed “the marble halls of Oregon” – is in fact a single cave that stretches roughly 15,000 feet underground. It’s open to exploration on one of several kinds of tours, from family-friendly to adventurous, led by park rangers between late March and early November.

In 2022, about 73,000 visitors toured the Oregon Caves, according to Megan Pugh, executive director of the Illinois Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Those visitors spent an estimated $6.8 million in the communities around the cave. Reopening the chateau, she said, would bring more overnight visitors and be an important economic boon to the area.

“The closure of the chateau removed 30 full-time jobs as well as a host of associated contracts such as food vendors and local artisan creations that were made available within the gift shop,” Pugh said. “Without the seismic stabilization, this historic monument will only remain a relic. Generations will be told of a once glorious era at a luxury park lodge, rather than an experience to be had by future generations.”

-- Samantha Swindler covers features for The Oregonian/OregonLive and Here is Oregon. Reach her at sswindler@oregonian.com.

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