Wednesday evening I was invited along with many other people down to the Riverhouse Hotel for the grand opening unveiling of their massive redesign—you may remember that the Riverhouse sold last year to Vesta Hospitality, and one of the big projects was to be a multi-million dollar renovation project. The format was a self-guided open house, with several “stops” in the main lobby building, the convention center, and the hotel rooms. Most of the stops offered complimentary food, as well as beer and wine, and the tour ended at the dining deck overlooking the river.

I have to say, it’s a very impressive job that Vesta did to renovate the hotel—more than one comment about bringing the Riverhouse into the 21st century with modern sensibilities was made. For starters, the lobby has moved from the first building facing the street down to the building shared with the restaurant and lounge, which frankly seems better. The river views are as great as ever—it’s hard to go wrong there—and I’ve been to the convention center recently so there wasn’t much “new” to see there for me.

The biggest change was to the hotel rooms themselves, with the buildings getting new fixtures, paint, carpets, and the rooms themselves getting a complete makeover. Used to be they were pretty ’70s, ’80s in style, now they’re definitely what I would expect to see in a brand-new hotel, while maintaining that “rustic” look with plenty of wood, stone, and leather. And the river views are great too.

And a bonus! One of the activities of the evening was an attendance drawing, which to participate you had to visit each of the “stops” on the self-guided tour and get a stamp in a brochure. At the end of the evening, they drew names from the completed, stamped brochures for some nice prizes. And I won one! I rarely win anything at events like this, so that was fun.

Check out the Riverhouse if you get a chance, or their new restaurant, Currents. In the meantime, enjoy some photos from the evening: