Inn of Mountain Gods

The ancient gods of the Mescalero Apaches chose the mountains as their place to dwell in eternity.

And now the Mescaleros in New Mexico are constructing a new, $100 million, full-service casino, conference center and resort near the mountain town of Ruidoso.

The new, five-star resort will replace the original "Inn of the Mountain Gods," which was constructed in 1975. Sitting approximately 7 mi. west of the small, southern New Mexico town, the new hotel features more than 1.1 million sq. ft. of space and includes a 1,500-space underground parking garage. The steel-framed subterranean garage is purportedly the largest parking structure of its type in North America.

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"The resort is very unique in that it's a very compact design," said Centex CEO and president Rick Johnson. "People don't have to venture very far to get from one venue to the next."

The 38,000-sq.-ft. casino accommodates 1,000 slot machines, 34 table games, four craps tables, two roulette wheels and a combination of blackjack and specialty games. There are two restaurants and a buffet, a sports bar and nightclub, and a high-end, 20,000-sq.-ft.health club and spa. The tribe has the option to expand the slot machines to 1,500 units and add 200 more rooms. Convention space is 30,000 -sq. -ft.

"What's special about this project is that it targets a new customer base for the tribe," said Michael French, Inn of the Mountain Gods chief operating officer. "This project is geared to speak to a higher level and more affluent customer base and it's designed to bring a lot of new business into the region and the state."

Crews from Dallas-based Centex Construction started tearing down 10 of the 11 existing buildings on the site, which sits next to the small, man-made Mescalero Lake, in January 2003. Earthwork followed a month later, with an opening scheduled for April 2005.

Designed by the Denver office of Worth Group Architects P.C., the project sits on a complicated site with steep slopes facing the lake. Initially planned with a surface parking lot, architects redesigned the project to move the parking underground.

The three-story underground parking structure uses castellated steel beams to save money, while giving the garage an open feeling. The parking garage was designed by MA Engineering of Las Vegas and detailed by Albuquerque's E-Steel, a partnership between AMFAB Steel, Chavez Grieves Consulting Engineers and DTLs. Inc.

"They decided to go with steel, which was a pretty bold move," said Centex project manager Jason Harper. "It was more expensive than CMU, but it saved us time and they wanted something that was open and airy."

The resort sits on 460 piers resting on load-bearing rock an average of 60- ft. below the lake-level grade. Most of the piers are 48-in diameter, although size varies. Slab thickness varies throughout much of the project, although 6- in. is typical. With the garage included, the project is eight stories high.

The project employs a 30-ft.-high load-relief wall that acts much like a mechanically stabilized earth wall on a highway project. Contractors used a geo grid material with 18-in. lifts of earth to reinforce and stabilize the retaining wall. Geo grid, a fabric material, is laid perpendicular to the supported wall and covered with dirt.

"We used a load-relief wall so we wouldn't put pressure on the perimeter of the garage and the structure," said project architect Delbert Ragland of Worth Group of Denver. "It's a wall system they use on highway projects when they need to create a high load capacity without worrying if it is going to fall down."

The resort initially was conceived as a concrete masonry project, but the size and scale, along with local workforce constraints, led designers to use a steel-framed building clad in EIFS with dry-stacked stone details. The project is topped off with standing metal seam with off-center barrel vault roofs.

Although there are hints of tribal culture, the owner wanted a more contemporary look for the resort.

"They didn't want it to look like a casino or too Native American," said Jeff Morris, another project architect from Worth Group. "We went with an abstraction of a lot of elements. Everything you see is an abstraction of an element that was there or is important to the tribe."

One such element is the resort's semi-circular entryway, which takes its inspiration from an Apache war shield from the 19th Century. A series of Porte-cocheres gradually fall back from the driveway into the building's doors, with a plaza water fountain depicting crown dancers, who represent the Apache's sacred mountain spirits.

As guests enter the hotel, they are greeted with a spectacular view of Sierra Blanca Peak through a 2.5-story glass curtain wall looking out onto Lake Mescalero.

"It's going to be a really great building when it's done," Adams said. "The building is a quarter-mile long, and just about all the rooms are on the lakefront."

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