|Photo by Emma Delk| Upgrades to the Wilson Lodge's front entrance are scheduled to be completed late this spring.
Renovations to the main entrance to Wilson Lodge in Oglebay and updates to the resort's dining operations are scheduled to be completed in late spring 2024, according to Wheeling Park Commission Vice President of Administration Uwe Roggenthien.
With updates at the lodge completed, Oglebay CEO Bob Peckenpaugh teased future additions to the park during a Wheeling Park Commission meeting Monday — including a new lion habitat at the Good Zoo.
The new gallery is scheduled to open in the summer of 2025. The committee is also exploring adding a hotel or cabin attached to the gallery for guests to stay in, according to Peckinpaugh.
“The idea is that you wake up in your room, open the curtains, and there will be a glass wall between you and the lions,” Peckinpaugh explained. “It will be a truly unique experience.”
While the addition of lion habitat has been confirmed, whether an annex room will be added is still being discussed by the committee.
While completion of the lion habitat is still more than a year away, adding an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant entrance to the lodge will be completed late this spring.
Other “deferred maintenance needs” have come to the attention of park leadership during the upgrades, Becknabaugh noted.
At the top of the Oglebay staff's to-do list is repaving the driveway leading to the lodge's main entrance as well as staining and painting the building.
“Since we're going to have this big, beautiful new entrance, we want to make sure the whole building looks great,” Peckinpaugh noted. “I use the example that when you drive up to the lodge, you don't want to hit a pothole to get to this beautiful new entrance. What's even worse is to see dust and dirt on the side of the building that needs to be cleaned after updates.
Funding for the repaving will come from a $250,000 distribution from Wheeling's Park Systems Trust.
The power wash and new coat of paint that Peckenpaugh believes will tie the updates together will be completed with funding from the Oglebay Foundation's Capitol “Forever Yours” campaign.
The interior of the lodge is also getting attention, with Sarita's Coffee Bar and the resort shop in the lobby getting upgrades. According to Oglebay Marketing Director Wendy Hodorowski, the upstairs dining areas will also be redesigned with new dining options created.
To successfully reopen the resort's dining facilities, “all the right things have to be purchased, all the proper training has to be done,” Peckinpaugh explained at Monday's meeting. He noted that this includes reorganizing the park's food and beverage department.
A major staffing change will be the appointment of Oglebay's Assistant Food and Beverage Director Bruce Wilkinson as the new Director of Culinary. Wilkinson will now manage the kitchens for the park's dining operations.
Jonathan Story, Director of Food and Beverage at Oglebay, will focus primarily on the “front end” supervising restaurant and banquet staff, cooking and managing food and beverage purchases.
“The reason we hired the culinary director position is because the kitchen portions are not being managed as well as we want them to be,” Peckinabaugh explained during the meeting. “We've got Bruce stepping in to manage all of that. We're starting with those two gentlemen in those roles, and that will flow into the rest of our food and beverage.”
WPC President Gregory McDermott noted that the committee wants to make sure the lodge is “equipped for success” once the upgrades are complete.
“It's a delicate process of drawing the line between realistic ambition and then impulsive invention, and that's a difficult process,” McDermott said.
Peckinpaugh added that Oglebay's updates will be “on permanent basis” for at least the next five years. These extensive renovations will include not only the addition of the lion exhibit and upgrades to the existing lodge, but also room renovations in the resort's Lakeside Wing and Byrd Wing.
