COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho-
The Coeur d'Alene Resort is marking its 20-year anniversary, overcoming doubters who two decades ago considered the area too remote for such a playground.
"The phone started ringing because a lot of people wanted to go to a world class resort in the middle of nowhere," Duane Hagadone, 73, told The Spokesman-Review during a phone interview from his winter home in Palm Springs, Calif.
The newspaper magnate and hotelier built the resort at a cost of $60 million in 1986. It has since attracted 3.7 million visitors and served 18 million meals in its restaurants.
Along the way it helped transform Coeur d'Alene from a faltering mill town into a nationally known destination with a booming real estate economy.
"Clearly the resort was a very bold investment," said Jonathan Coe, general manager of the Coeur d'Alene Area Chamber of Commerce. "It put Coeur d'Alene on the map. It created a name and a reputation for us throughout the country."
In the 1980s, taxes on hotel receipts grew as much as 16 percent per year in Kootenai County.
"When he built there, there were a lot of people shaking their heads, wondering what he was doing," said Carl Wilgus, assistant deputy director for the Idaho Commerce & Labor Department. "He made believers out of all of them."
The resort recently underwent a $20 million renovation that doubled the size of the health spa, which in 2004 brought in more money than the golf course did. The spa will offer anti-aging treatments such as Botox and neck contours.
"If you're going to compete you need a world class health spa," Hagadone said.
