Sagamore to Enclose Shelving Rock Terrace, Add Adults’ Pool and Sixteen New Rooms

Since the Sagamore was acquired by Ocean Properties in 2008, its guests have come to expect the unexpected.

When the hotel opened for the season in 2010, the cabana on the waterfront had been replaced by the new Lake House restaurant and the historic steamboat wharf  had  been rebuilt.

The prior year’s renovations included a re-designed lobby and dining room and the addition of new rooms, suites and a cocktail lounge. The last project to be completed in 2009, but the one that attracted the most attention, was the construction of a 3,500 ft swimming pool on the lawn overlooking the lake.

As guests pull up to the hotel this year, the bellboys greet them and collect their bags under a new porte-cochere. And on the waterfront, the Pavilion restaurant has been enlarged and entirely renovated.

Ocean Properties has now invested more than $20 million in the Sagamore, said Kevin Rosa, the hotel’s director of marketing and sales.  And even more changes are on the horizon.

Last week, representatives of the hotel appeared before Bolton’s zoning and planning boards to discuss a proposal to replace the Shelving Rock terrace with a banquet hall, to add an adult’s outdoor swimming pool by dismantling the indoor pool and to build sixteen new rooms at the main hotel, to mention just a few of the items presented to the boards by the hotel’s attorney, Ben Pratt.

According to Pratt, the capacity of the new Shelving Rock ballroom, which was approved by boards in 2004, will remain essentially unchanged, although the building will grow by 2,000 square feet to accommodate a new entrance, a kitchen and restrooms and an elevator.

The southern wing of the main hotel will be extended to allow sixteen new rooms to be added; the rooms will overlook a new outdoor pool.

The roof and exterior walls of the indoor pool building will be removed, although the pool itself will remain, surrounded by new decks and shaded by a trellis.

“When the pool was built in the mid-1980s, people complained that it wasn’t visually consistent with the architecture of the main hotel.  We’re attempting to remedy that,” said Tom Guay, the hotel’s general manager.

The indoor pool is rarely used in the summer, and adults want a pool that is off-limits to children, said Guay.

Or as Ben Pratt told the Planning Board, “it will be a place where the adults can be rid of the kids.”

The pool will be a three-season one, heated as the days grow cooler, said Guay.

Between the pool and the shore, platforms for seven cabanas will be erected.

“The cabanas will give the guest a base for his recreational activities on the waterfront; they’re another profit center for the hotel,” said Pratt.

Along the shore, other changes are in store. The Morgan will now berth on Saw Mill bay, boarding and discharging passengers at the steamboat wharf. The fleet of 18 rental boats, now docked below the Lake House restaurant, will be shifted to the Morgan’s current dock.

Moving the rental fleet will open dock space for ten to twelve boats, which the hotel will reserve for the owners of Hackers, Van Dams, Elco launches and equally stylish boats.

“We’re contemplating a Sagamore Boating Club,” said Tom Guay. “The club’s members will have access to the docks so they can come to the hotel, tie up and dine at one of the restaurants.”

According to Ben Pratt, the improvements now under way “are significant environmentally as well as aesthetically.”  The surfaces of driveways and paths will be replaced by grass and pavers and more gardens will be added, allowing more storm water to be infiltrated.

Tom Guay says the annual improvements to the hotel not only bring guests back, but attract new visitors every summer.

“We have 500 more rooms booked for August than we had last year at this time.” said Guay “For families who want the experience of a summer resort, this is the place to be.”