The owner of a historic railway that runs up Mount Washington is proposing to build upscale accommodations and a restaurant near the summit of New Hampshire’s highest peak.
Mount Washington Cog Railway owner Wayne Presby said the nearly $14 million project would station 18 rail cars at an elevation around 5,800 feet (1,670 meters) from mid May through mid October. Nine sleeper cars would accommodate up to 70 guests who would pay similar rates to those charged on other sleepers.
“There is a demand for it. People want to stay up on the mountain,” Presby said of the project that will require state and county permits and take up to seven years to complete. “They want better facilities than what are being offered up there by the state of New Hampshire and everybody else.”
The project, presented earlier this month to the Mount Washington Commission, comes several years after Presby scrapped a plan to build a 35-room hotel on the mountain. That project came under widespread criticism from environmentalists and hikers, who argued the 25,000-square-foot (2,300-square-meter) hotel would damage the fragile alpine ecology and destroy the scenic views.
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