- Location: Hershey, PA
- Client: Hershey Entertainment & Resorts
The Hotel Hershey was constructed in the early 1930s and was designed as a scrapbook of sorts, with the design based on notes and postcards collected during Milton Hershey’s world travels. Today, the eclectic Mediterranean-style hotel, spa, and surrounding 300 acres of grounds and gardens are widely regarded as one of the premier resorts in the United States.
Always evolving, the Hotel has more than doubled in size since it opened in 1933. SMB&R has been involved with a variety of renovations to house dining, meeting, and gathering facilities, including the Starlight Terrace and Fountain Café.
SMB&R provided structural engineering for a three-story addition housing the 17,000 sf Spa at The Hotel Hershey. This luxury day spa features a fitness center, sixteen treatment rooms, soaking tubs, steam rooms, changing areas, an aromatherapy room, and a quiet room. The Spa Addition design, reminiscent of Hershey’s home at High Point Mansion, was conceived by TAG Resort Design and designed by Earl Swensson Associates.
The Milton Hershey Suite, the Hotel’s most exclusive accommodations, features two guest rooms, a parlor, sun room, and private veranda. To renovate the existing space, SMB&R completed a field survey to document and inspect the existing structure and then developed the design and details of the modifications necessary to meet the requirements of the new use. Included in the renovations were the modification of an existing building truss to allow access to the terrace and revisions to the existing elevator framing to allow an upgrade of the elevators.
SMB&R recently collaborated with resort designer Hart|Howerton on the design of the Hotel’s Porte Cochere, associated entrance and transportation access elements, and the renovation of the South Veranda, providing structural engineering design services for these projects.
