WINNEDUMAH IS BACK
A little more than a decade ago, frequent Eastern Sierra visitors Coty Hastie and his wife stayed in the historic Winnedumah Hotel in Independence and “fell in love with it, as most folks do,” Hastie said. “It has its own soul.”
However, the landmark building “was not really functional,” for today’s travelers because of its initial, 1920s-era design and the toll decades of patchwork repairs and general wear and tear had imposed on the two-story structure, he recently told The Sheet.
So Hastie stepped up and bought the Winnedumah. Starting with initial design and concept work in 2020, he has spent the last six years bringing it back to life with a top-to-bottom renovation.
“The goal was to maintain the building’s historic integrity by keeping what we can and adding modern comforts guests expect,” Hastie said. For example, some of the original furnishings, such as writing desks, luggage racks, chairs and mirrors, were refinished and remain in place.
The hotel, which features 24 rooms, had a quiet opening several weeks ago and has been hosting guests every day since.
The Winnedumah has anchored Independence since it opened in 1927, and Hastie wants to once again “make it a community hub, the living room for Independence and the Eastern Sierra.”
The hotel has a large, comfortable lobby and a small dining area that can also be used as a flexible meeting space, he said.
In the long-term, Hastie noted, “we are the just current stewards of the Winnedumah, our goal was to ensure this property outlives us and continues to welcome visitors to the Eastern Sierra.”
In the short term, the first thing Hastie faced were 100-year-old mechanical systems that had been patched and loosely maintined. “Everything behind the walls” had to be replaced, including electrical wiring, plumbing, lights, and heating and cooling systems, Hastie said.
All the carpet, furniture, beds, area rugs and furnishings are new, as are the bathroom fixtures. The lobby, with its 16-foot-high ceilings and unique fireplace featuring local stone, retains its 1920s look and feel, thanks to new, overstuffed couches and chairs and the a baby grand piano, a fixture for decades.
Each guest room has a unique layout and two larger suites are also available.
The Winnedumah was built by Lone Pine’s Walter Dow, who also built the Dow Hotel in Lone Pine in the 1920s. (Historical aside: Dow also went to the Central Valley and loaded up a small herd of Tule Elk and trucked them to the Owens Valley to start the area’s current Tule Elk herds.)
Both hotels shared what has become an outdated feature: A number of guest rooms with a shared bathroom. The redesign allowed Hastie to install new private bathrooms in all the Winnedumah’s rooms and suites.
Over the course of the renovations, Hastie said four general contractors from the area worked on the project, and multiple local sub-contractors and other trades were also involved.
He would not reveal how much the work cost, but did note with a bit of a laugh, “it was more then we budgeted.”
Hastie has a background in commercial real estate and resort real estate. He formed Black Walnut Partners, a private investment firm, to take on the Winnedumah. The firm is basically, “me and my partner,”
Hastie said. Hastie splits his time between Independence and Los Angeles with his family.
In a final e-mail comment, Hastie wrote, “We hope [the Winnedumah’s] soul has remained intact and that it will continue on as a contributing member of the local ecosystem, anchored by the community and the natural environment.”
See www.winnedumah.com for more details and reservations.
