After a massive renovation project, the Hotel Saranac is seen around 4 p.m. Thursday, the time it opened to customers for the first time since 2013. (Enterprise photo — Glynis Hart)

Nearly every day I walked by the Hotel Saranac and gave a passing look through its windows, wondering if it ever would really open again. I vested a considerable amount of time in that facility from my first days working at Paul Smith’s College as a hotel instructor and through varying levels of involvement over 26 years at the college. For a brief year in 2004, the hotel, for some strange reason, even reported to me.

Today as I walked by, a fresh new staff was tearing the brown paper shields off the windows on the Hotel’s flagship restaurant: Camp Fire Adirondack Grill. At last, the building was breathing again. I couldn’t help but think back in time to the people, the events, the challenges, the disappointments and the great successes that grace this property’s history. If only those walls could talk.

I remember so many people — names that will be familiar to some in the village who have loads of historical memories as well: Zephie and Fred, who ran the kitchen when I was a student there in the late 1960s; Little Joe and Bob Delaney, whose presence in the kitchen will bring a smile to more people than you could imagine; numerous past general managers and assistant managers like Grant Kane, Don Streb, Warren Leigh, Joe Hardiman, Glenn Miller and Peter Ordway, who had an uncanny ability to make the hotel glimmer as the center of town; dining room managers and faculty members who invested many years in setting the stage for training totally green students and locals on the details of service — Helena, Sue Alexander, Kay Leigh, Mary Riley — Ken the bartender (forever); a cadre of chefs and bakers like Dave Gotzmer, Carl, Roger Steinbrueck, Mike Garnish, Paul Menard the baker and Dick and Mary his predecessors, Greg Picard, Jim Lyons and Jarrad Lang; other dedicated faculty who crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s in hospitality education — Ruth Pino, Joe Conto, Fred Becker, Don Forth, Paul Mach, Tim Sullivan and Chris McCoy — Frank, the consummate gift shop manager; Sid Eighmey, who was responsible for herding the faculty; and of course — Harry Purchase. There were dozens of others whose names I have forgotten — their presence will remain with me forever.

What some may lose sight of is how significant this hotel was to the hospitality industry as a whole. You may ask why I would say this about a small boutique property in a quaint village of 5,000 residents. I would go even further to say that the Hotel Saranac may have been one of the most influential hotels in the country for many years. Through those halls walked, lived and trained thousands of students who went on to make their mark in the field of hotel management and culinary arts. Some of those graduates became world-class restaurateurs, CEOs of companies, presidents of hotel groups, restaurant and hotel owners, general managers, food and beverage directors, executive chefs, pastry chefs and bakers, educators and even research chefs. There was a time when you could walk into nearly any major hotel or restaurant group in the country, mention Paul Smith’s College and get an eager smile in return. The response might be, “Our GM is a Paul Smith’s graduate,” or, “Our chef went to that school.” When confronted, I would guarantee that to a person, if asked what did they think about their education, the Hotel Saranac experience would be “front and center” as the shinning star, an experience that helped mold their careers.

Those students will always remember time in the dish pit, waiting on tables for the first time (shaking and sweating with nerves), learning how to flip an egg or run a station on the kitchen line, and of course, the Thursday Night Buffet — every student’s culminating experience at Paul Smith’s. They remember the hard work, the busy times and the times when the restaurant and hotel was nearly empty, but they still had to learn about their positions.

Some might remember watching through the front windows as Doc Sageman’s building burned across the street, or the Berkeley Hotel and Pontiac Theater. The hotel was ringside seat for these tragic events.

I remember converting Lydia’s Restaurant into A.P. Smith’s with a true Adirondack theme and reflection on the history of the college that owned this important hotel. I remember Bob Brhel giving stagecoach rides as we christened the new restaurant and Joe Hackett outside with 1940s cars and hunting equipment that depicted the early era of the Hot Sara. The walls of the restaurant were adorned with trophy tied fishing flies compliments of Sam Grimone’s personal collection, and the menu was filled with comfort foods relevant to this mountain town’s history.

I remember cooking for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones in the Academy Room of the hotel just before they performed at the Waterhole, and further back to the time, as a student I can remember sitting on the ballroom floor listening to Gordon Lightfoot play to a group of maybe 100 appreciative students.

As important as the Hotel Saranac was to Paul Smith’s, the college would never have had the funds to restore it like the Roedel family. The Hotel Saranac was always the center of our village, a place for weddings, graduations, proms, reunions, Carnival activities, political events, organization meetings and neighbor get-togethers. Now it has returned to the people of Saranac Lake, and it is our responsibility to support it. Driving into town, we are once again greeted by the landmark sign on the Hotel’s roof proclaiming, “We are back.” Thanks to the Roedel family for this gift.

I wish the hotel team all the best.

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Paul Sorgule lives in Saranac Lake.