The ABC Virginia Chapter recognized the Restoration of the Cavalier Hotel during their 5th annual Excellence in Construction Awards. These awards highlight and honor extraordinary teamwork among contractors, architects and engineers, specialty contractors, and material suppliers, along with the crafts persons that bring each project to life.

The Cavalier was recognized with three awards:

• an Honor Award of Excellence in the Historic Restoration category
• an Allegiance Award, celebrating merit-based contractors on the project, and
• the Overall Excellence in Construction award.

This historic preservation was a labor of love spearheaded by six local businessmen who stayed the course despite extensive surprises revealing more damage at every turn. This project reinforced the underlying structural system, corroded by the salt-air environment, while preserving the character-defining features of this grand hotel using great care and artisanship. The result is the work of historical preservation experts, talented designers, expert builders and countless skilled craft persons. Judges praised the project team for overcoming technical challenges and working together to find solutions.

The original building fell into disrepair because previous owners could not access the Y-shaped structure for maintenance and repair. The team developed a structural Davit system, allowing masons to use swing staging and boson’s chairs to access all sides of the façade. This system provides the owners with the ability to maintain the façade properly.

The team performed an extensive review of the façade, chimneys, windows, cornices, moldings and embellishments. Using drones to capture detailed images and videos, the team documented the level of difficulty, the extent of restoration required, and determined exactly where to place swing stages and scaffolding. This technology saved time and money while reducing risk to workers.

The water tower structure had decayed so badly that it was in jeopardy of becoming unable to bear the weight of the cast stone bell tower above. The builder, architect and structural engineer developed a safe, efficient solution to shore and reinforce the structure, allowing workers to restore the tower while providing safe access below for crews to work on other aspects of the restoration.

The Hunt Room fireplace was a major feature of the historic preservation. While removing walls and molding around the fireplace, the team discovered there was no foundation underneath. Using photographs to document the existing structure, brick masons removed one piece of brick at a time, cleaned, restored, and labeled each one, added the foundation, and painstakingly reset each brick in its original order and location.

Crafts-persons restored windows, ornamental plasterwork, wood moldings, paneling and terrazzo flooring on the intact but neglected main floor. The team refurbished the iconic indoor pool and restored the steel truss framing supporting the skylight. A variety of structural steel repairs strengthen and maintain the integrity of the building’s frame. Extensive exterior rehabilitation to the brick masonry and cast stone ornament restored the “Grand Dame” to its previous glory.

W. M. Jordan Company thanks all of our industry partners for their exemplary work on this project! #WeBuildVirginia