In the heart of Portland’s revitalized West End, the Governor Hotel has been reborn with a fresh new name, attitude and design. Dubbed Sentinel, after the robotic architectural sculptures that look out across the city from the top of the historic building, it serves as a luxurious urban retreat and meeting place for the visionary thinkers, makers and doers who flock to this verdant, rain-soaked Pacific Northwest city for entrepreneurial and artistic inspiration.Provenance Hotels, the Portland-based hotel company that owns and operates the city’s critically acclaimed Hotel Lucia and Hotel deLuxe, purchased the Governor Hotel in April 2012 in partnership with Woodbine Development Corporation of Dallas, TX. Together, they have invested $6 million in an extensive renovation of the historic 100-room hotel. Aimed at reinventing the property for the future, it included the reinvigoration of all guest rooms, four floors of meeting space and the lobby. Jackknife, a new destination for craft cocktails, wine and beer, is located in Sentinel’s lobby.
The Sentinel project is the first collaboration between Provenance Hotels and Woodbine, a company that has been developing, renovating and repositioning hotels since the 1970s. “Transforming historic properties has been one of our specialities, and this hotel afforded us a great opportunity to apply our skills,” said Woodbine’s managing director Dupree Scovell. “The physical transformation called for a new name that tied back to the buildings’ architecture and origins.”
“Sentinels look around, look out and look back if it helps them look forward,” added Bashar Wali, President of Provenance Hotels. “We felt, as we returned the two historic buildings that make up Sentinel to their original grandeur, it was appropriate to name the hotel in their honour.”
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