Recent news that the court-disputed sale of the Hotel Lenhart is, we hope, a good development for the village of Bemus Point and those who look forward each summer to spending lazy summer evenings on the iconic rocking chairs of the venerable lakefront hotel.

The Hotel Lenhart has has been a major fixture on Chautauqua Lake since the summer of 1882, when the hotel opened. An 1891 fire destroyed the original building with the current hotel built in its place. Since then hotels on the lakefront have come and gone – but the Lenhart and Chautauqua Institution’s Athenaeum have remained. But since the pandemic the Hotel Lenhart has been closed more often than it was opened between the pandemic and the protracted sale process that landed in state Supreme Court and, for a time, the Fourth Department Appellate Division.

It was unfortunate that the sale ended up in court. The hotel has been closed the last two summers while lawyers argued over the future of the grand old hotel in court. For many, the past two summers in Bemus Point have been incomplete without the Hotel Lenhart open .The hotel will remain closed this year while the new owners undertake renovations to the hotel. But it should be the last year the village has to be without the Hotel Lenhart – hopefully for quite some time.

Hotels like the Lenhart and the Athenaeum are a throwback to the lakefront hotels that once dominated the shores of Chautauqua Lake. The rocking chairs made a reappearance over the weekend as several Maple Grove Junior-Senior High School students made their way to the Lenhart’s front porch for prom photos. We hope the school’s juniors and seniors – and the rest of us for whom the Hotel Lenhart is an integral part of life on Chautauqua Lake – will have the same opportunity for years to come.