Rosario Rebound San Juans, Amenities Such As Schooner Rides For Guests Make High-Priced Stay Attractive

You’ve got to hand it to Robert Moran. The rags-to-riches entrepreneur knew how to build things, from the World War I battleship USS Nebraska to his 54-room mansion, Rosario.

Constructed by shipwrights rather than carpenters, the venerable mansion would probably be seaworthy if it were equipped with masts.

With a landscape originally designed by William Law Olmsted, the architect for New York’s Central Park, and a breathtaking setting on the largest island in the San Juans, the home, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is the centerpiece of an $8 million revitalization program.

Because of modern-day fire regulations, there are no guest rooms available within the mansion, whose architecture is best described as arts-and-crafts style with a nautical theme. Instead, it houses administrative offices, a gift shop, a second-floor museum boasting a cavernous music room with a 1,972-pipe Aeolian organ, sunny dining rooms and a spa complete with boutique, workout rooms and indoor pool.

That organ, incidentally, is featured in a free nightly show during which Christopher Peacock plays the music from “The Phantom of the Opera” while guests watch the flickering silent film starring Lon Chaney as the phantom.

Peacock, a composer and owner of his own music company, also performs on the hotel’s 98-year-old Steinway grand piano and entertains dinner guests on yet another piano in the Orcas Room.

About the rooms themselves, general manager Christopher French observes: “We refurbished every one by going down to the studs, redoing the wiring, the plumbing, everything. New paint, new carpets, new furniture, new soundproofing and the entire hotel is a nonsmoking facility.”

It’s an enormous undertaking, but obviously necessary. As one 1995 guidebook (San Juan & Gulf Islands Best Places) noted about Rosario: “Unfortunately, the resort hasn’t lived up to its extravagant billing and prices; however, recent ownership changes leave us hopeful.”

Those hopes have come to fruition: “We want to return the resort to a position of prominence as a time-honored treasure of the Pacific Northwest,” French says, “and we’ve made huge strides toward that goal.”

The evidence is in my room ($300 nightly) with stylish paintings on the walls, king-size bed, gas fireplace, dining area, personal refrigerator, spacious closets and two sets of sliding French doors affording a view of the marina and sound.

Burnt-orange starfish cling to the rocks below my deck, a large sailboat drops its anchor and lowers sails a few dozen yards from the marina, a class of kayakers paddle their neon-bright boats behind an instructor and I nearly drop my Nikon when a bald eagle soundlessly swoops past. A tantalizingly faint odor of fresh latex paint still clings to the bathroom hallway.

It’s easy to see why Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates selected Rosario (and its 6,250-square-foot self-contained conference center) for a gathering of his top executives last winter. “They rented the entire hotel, even though they didn’t use every room,” French recalls. “They are very security-conscious.”

French shows some of the other rooms in detached buildings that climb the mountainside above Cascade Bay on the 30-acres site. Each one has a harbor or marina view.

The bridal suite, or “Rosario Suite” ($500 per night), is closest to the mansion and all by itself. It includes a built-in spa tub. And there’s a special feature found nowhere else in the hotel: lifting what resembles a battery-powered garage door opener, French smiles in delight as it raises and lowers the fabric window coverings on the large window from beside the enormous canopied bed.

On board the two-masted schooner Morning Star (free rides are provided for guests), I compare notes with two sisters who have taken leave of family for a three-day getaway. Their only complaint with the accommodations is with the spa: “It’s been worked on, but it’s old,” one says.

Upon personal inspection, I see the reason for the criticism. A sign alongside the Jacuzzi apologizes for the jets not working. There’s construction under way in another room. The indoor pool, although sparkling clean, was there when the mansion was completed in 1909.

At dinner I open the subject with French, who nods, “That’s why we’re not currently advertising as ‘Rosario Resort and Spa.’ Right now deliberations are being made whether or not to construct a brand-new building for a spa.”

That’s the only complaint I hear for three days of chatting with guests as we take van tours of the island’s attractions. There are two large outdoor pools that attract a goodly number of swimmers, and recreational opportunities such as whale watching ($45 for adults, $30 for kids).

We spend five short hours tracking down three pods of killer whales as a naturalist fills us in on facts and figures. She also identifies individual whales by name as she spots their dorsal fins.

“These are the most studied whales on the face of the Earth,” she says, which is evidenced by the flotilla of boats that try to keep a respectful 100 yards from the seagoing mammals. One swims straight at us, gliding smoothly under our keel.

As I await the arrival of a twinengine plane at the Eastsound airport, an incoming passenger asks, “Did you have a nice time?”

“I’ll be back,” I say. And I mean it.