As the longtime general manager of the Hermitage Hotel, Dee Patel spent the pandemic overseeing a complete interior restoration of the historic hotel. Her team overhauled everything from guest rooms to the lower-level bathrooms to the lobby’s painted glass ceiling. Part of the goal was to preserve and honor the hotel’s role in the suffrage movement. The team developed educational displays in the lobby and worked with Draper James on a uniform design sporting yellow flowers as a nod to the iconic yellow roses suffragettes wore. In August 2020 — the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment — the hotel unveiled the culmination of the preservation work: achieving National Historic Landmark status.
Best Historic Steward
Dee Patel
Dee Patel
