Bob Hunt now owns the most motel rooms in the McCall area with the acquisition of the former Best Western, McCall.
Hunt's three McCall properties have 225 rooms. They are The Holiday Inn Hunt Lodge with 85 rooms, the Super 8 Motel with 61 rooms, and the Western Mountain Lodge-the new name of the Best Western-McCall with 79 rooms.
Hunt also is the largest contributor to McCall's local-option tax, which is a 3 percent tax on rental rooms that is used primarily to improve tourism in McCall.
Hunt is beginning to renovate his newest hotel property. Over the next year and a half, he will oversee a complete cosmetic overhaul of the inside of the hotel, one wing at a time.
Hunt also plans to improve the exterior as well. He plans to turn the hotel into something that has the character of McCall. Exterior improvements will be the final improvements to the 79-room hotel and could be done within 2-1/2 years, Hunt said.
"It doesn't look like a lodge, but it will when I'm done," Hunt said. "You've got to do something first, so we changed the name."
Third-generation hotelier
Hunt, 50, is a third-generation hotelier. His grandfather owned a small motel in Florida, and his father did the same in California.
Hunt’s father asked him if he’d like to buy the business when Hunt was 29.
"You seemed like the only kid out of six who liked the hotel business,?' Hunt recalled what his father said to him. Hunt accepted the offer and has spent the last 21 years in the hotel business.
Hunt currently owns three hotels on the Mendocino Coast in California about 175 miles north of San Francisco. He also owns a hotel in Homer, Alaska, south of Anchorage. also owns one other Holiday Inn m Fort Bragg, Calif.
Hunt arrived in McCall about five years ago. He had plans to build The Hunt Lodge then. After presenting his plans to the city council, his plans were approved in less than an hour, he said.
Hunt's recent plans for a Grand Payette Lodge located on the lakefront in downtown McCall were derailed over the summer as the city council went back and forth on whether or not to continue to allow buildings above 35 feet in that area.
The council settled on a moratorium on buildings above 35 feet along the lakefront and is in the process of removing the section of city code that made it a possibility.
Still Hunt loves his time in McCall.
"I love it, absolutely. I mean that deal on the lake is just a separate deal," he said. "I think I got here at the right time, built the hotel, and it is home."
He has plans to expand the Super 8 Hotel and The Hunt Lodge sometime in the future. With the purchase of the Best Western property, he also acquired an acre of land on Colorado Street that already had plans for an apartment development.
Hunt plans to improve those plans and build an apartment building to provide affordable housing.
"If I can get 24 apartments in here where people can afford it, that's my objective," Hunt said. "It is something that we need."
More rooms needed
McCall also needs more hotel rooms and a larger convention facility to attract more convention business, he said.
"I believe that we need a larger meeting facility in this town, and I would like to work toward seeing that happen," Hunt said. "Our demand right now is we need seating for 400, but as soon as you build that then demand is 500." However, the town's hotel inventory will not support a convention center of that size. "We need the rooms first," he said. "We constantly get calls at the Hunt Lodge ... we can seat 175 to 200...people say we are looking for a room for 300, as soon as you tell them that we don't have that then they have been educated, and we've educated the entire state of Idaho."
Hunt also owns River's Crossing, a riverfront community on the North Fork of the Payette River with 60 home sites.
The clubhouse, roads and infrastructure are in place. So far, six home sites have been sold, with four currently under construction.
Kerr, who has been a proponent of the bypass for decades in his role as county commissioner and a member of city's transportation advisory committee.
"If we could save a 100-foot right-of-way through there we could get development agreements (with land developers) and get a two-lane road or maybe a recreation path," Kerr said.
The new West Deinhard Lane route is not an acceptable as a bypass because it does not go around Goose Creek Grade, which is a hazardous stretch of road, Kerr said.
During the 2004 meeting, the ITD board directed its staff to immediately begin studying ways to improve the Goose Creek Grade section.
However, no work has been done on the board's direction, Vitley said.
"While the Goose Creek Bypass warrants further consideration, there are many other projects in the state which are of greater need," he said.
