New owner/manager creating 'wow' at revitalized Aurora Inn

Franz Bauer has been part owner and general manager of the Aurora Inn for more than 10 months, but there is another "official title" he claims: chief COW.

"Creator of wow," he explains while standing in the inn's ballroom. "That is my whole concept. To create wow in people. When they walk through that door, it's like the curtain's open for performance, and for them to leave here not saying and thinking 'wow,' then we fell short."

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And not falling short is something he and his staff strive for.

"That's just the culture we're developing, with every associate here saying, 'How did you wow? What did you do to wow someone?' And that's what we're pursuing all the time, whether it's me, all the way to the managers, all the way down to whoever comes into contact with guests."

Aurora Mayor Ann Womer Benjamin says she is happy with what Bauer is doing at the inn.

"It's a very iconic establishment in Aurora so I'm very excited, as I think the community is, that someone of Franz Bauer's experience and wherewithal has taken it over. And I think he's done some really neat things," she says.

"I think he's just ... breathing new life into a beautiful, important facility in the city," she added.

A long past, uncertain future

The Aurora Inn, at 30 Shawnee Trail, was constructed in 1927 on the remains of a 19th century stagecoach stop.

In 1963, a massive fire destroyed the inn's wings, which were soon rebuilt, but left the center section intact, including the lobby, tavern and ballroom.

Standing in the lobby last week, a fire burning in its fireplace, Bauer points out the brick floor around the front desk dating back to when the property was a stagecoach stop. The Six Horses Tavern, the inn's restaurant, was the stop's stable, he says.

He also points with pride to original beams and an antique chandelier overhead. Much of the inn's current appearance is the result of an extensive 2017 renovation guided by the "vision" of interior designer and HGTV host Genevieve Gorder. The renovation added modern updates to the inn while highlighting its historic qualities. The brick floor was exposed after long being covered over, for example.

But the inn was also falling on hard times. In September 2019, it went into receivership, with plans to sell it. COVID delayed that, but it was placed back on the market in 2021. Bauer says he was told that one perspective buyer wanted to turn the property into a "boarding house" while another was only interested in the restaurant.

But to him, the inn it was the fulfillment of a long-held desire.

Rescuing a historic hotel

As a young man, Bauer, now 52, was casting about for what he wanted to do with his life, including spending two years at New York University. He went to work at a hotel partly owned by his father and immediately found his calling.

"I knew that's what I wanted to do," he says.

He studied business at Cleveland State University, focusing on the application of general principles to hotels. He took on a variety of hotel jobs, meanwhile, and began moving into management in 1993.

In the following years, he worked hotels in Northeast Ohio and Michigan. This culminated with a management job at a 700-room Hyatt hotel in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., where he was working on Sept. 11, 2001.

"That was crazy," Bauer says. "From the roof, you could see where the plane had hit the Pentagon."

He recalls distraught American and United airlines employees walking over from the nearby airport, and hotel staff providing them with food and beverages.

"It was just such an unbelievable, surreal time," he says.

After that job, he returned to Northeast Ohio, only to find a lack of hotel management positions and ended up in the mortgage business for more than 15 years. But he had a lot of ideas he wanted to implement in his own hotel.

"I was always waiting for a hotel to acquire," he says.

The Aurora Inn was exactly what Bauer was looking for, and with partners he formed a limited liability company, with Bauer owning 50%. Their $2.15 million was the winning bid at an auction in February 2022, and the purchase closed on May 4.

Bauer says the price could be considered low, but notes that the inn had been losing money. But he and his partners recognized its potential, with multiple revenue opportunities.

Womer Benjamin says the inn's buyers were a relief.

"It had been in bankruptcy for a while and was being managed, I think, pretty well by the people appointed to oversee the bankruptcy but then it went to auction," she says. "And, of course, you don't know what's going to happen at that point. But I think it turned out very positively."

Dozens of rooms, some haunted

The Aurora Inn has 66 rooms, most of which were renovated in 2017. The rooms include two suites, six rooms for guests with pets and "two haunted rooms."

Hallways are lined with numerous framed historic black-and-white photographs of the city and the inn that were loaned to the inn by the Aurora Historical Society.

Rooms have a mixture of a king bed or two queen beds, which Bauer calls "family friendly." In one room that was renovated, Bauer shows off an interplay of carpeting and tile, pine ceiling and drapes ordered from Paris, as well as a sliding wooden bathroom door resembling a barn door. He points to the "little touches" − a pair of bathrobes hanging from hooks, a copper ice bucket and Starbucks coffee.

"I call it uniquey-boutiquey because it's not quite a boutique hotel, but it's not a bed and breakfast," says Bauer. "It falls somewhere in between."

A nearby suite includes a front sitting room and a bedroom, with the bathroom off of it. The front room has a wet bar, with a microwave oven, small refrigerator-freezer, sink and coffee maker. The suite also has a powder room.

Bauer wants to install record players in the rooms this spring and summer, with a library of vinyl records for guests to borrow. It is an amenity he saw at a San Francisco hotel.

The six pet-friendly rooms have vinyl floors and easy access to the outside. Dogs are given a treat during check-in.

"So that gives it a bit of a family-friendly feeling as well," he says.

As for the haunted rooms, Bauer says various people have reported seeing a ghost there for years.

"There is no record of anyone passing away here, not in the fires, not anything else, but just a woman," says Bauer, adding that because of the way the woman is dressed, she could date back to the stagecoach days. "It's always the same figure, this white woman in 1800s attire."

Bauer says paranormal investigators examining the rooms have "confirmed this is where the energy is."

"Whether you believe it or you don't," he adds.

Not just for hotel guests

Bauer touts amenities that make the Aurora Inn an attractive destination even for people who are not staying there.

For starters, there's the tavern, including a space that was once a separate, cafeteria-style eatery. Bauer wants to open up the wall with the bar on the other side to make restaurant spaces even more cohesive − "really have the energy flow," he says.

A new restaurant manager and an executive chef were hired in the fall, and the menu has been revamped. Bauer says "bar food" is still available, but there are also more steak and pasta dishes.

"It's adapted to what people in the area were asking for, which is still casual, but upscale casual," he says.

A patio outside can accommodate up to 50 additional diners, weather permitting.

"On certain nights, we have live music out there," says Bauer.

Non-hotel guests are welcome at the restaurant, and carryout is available.

"It's quite popular with the locals," he says.

Off the restaurant is the veranda. Painted white with lots of natural light coming through windows, it can hold up to 50 people and can be used for a variety of events, including wedding and baby showers. Bauer says his favorite features in the room are the ornate 1927 chandeliers.

Bauer points out an open space outside the windows, some distance beyond the patio, where a 3,200-square-foot tent can be used for public events, like an Oktoberfest with a food truck and beer trailer this past September that drew 350 people.

"We had German music and I had my lederhosen on," he says.

Next to the veranda is the ballroom, which can hold as many as 90 people with space left over for dancing. Although quiet at that time, Bauer says the ballroom is a busy place, with as many as three events held there in a single day, such as a 1920s-themed New Year's Eve party.

"At Christmas, we had 25 holiday parties in 18 days," says Bauer.

It is in the ballroom, with its historic décor, that Bauer brings up his role as chief COW.

"Every person who works here, I tell them, 'Listen, if you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong because that telegraphs all the way to the guests,'" he says. "If they're having fun, then the guests are having fun."

The ballroom is also available for meetings and small conventions, with smaller rooms available, as well, for meetings and children's birthday parties.

"It still smells like pizza from last week's party," Bauer notes after opening the door.

Finally, there is the nearly Olympic-size indoor pool. Bauer has had the locker rooms repainted and added Amish-crafted cedar benches and shelving.

Work in the pool area itself, including repainting and new furniture, is expected to be completed mostly before summer. An exercise room is also planned.

A "unique" mix of chlorine and baking soda is used in the pool, which makes the water easier on sensitive skin while remaining compliant with health codes, says Bauer.

Area residents have told him they want the inn to be successful.

"It feels so good to be welcomed and a part of the community," he says, adding later, "I would love to invite anybody who is in the area to come in. I'll personally give them a tour and show them around and would love to have people rediscover everything that is the Aurora Inn."

Bauer has plenty of ideas for what he wants to do with the inn, but seems always open to new ones. While leafing through a brochure that includes historic information and photos of the inn that he found online, he stops on a couple of pages about sleigh and carriage rides that were considered by management many years ago.

"That's something we should look into," he says.

Reporter Jeff Saunders can be reached at jsaunders@recordpub.com.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: New manager and co-owner has revitalized historic Aurora Inn