WEST BADEN SPRINGS, Ind. — Intricate repairs are nearly complete on one of the most historic structures in our state, known for its phenomenal renovation.
The West Baden Springs Hotel was hit hard in a hailstorm last summer, causing major damage to its dome.
13News went up onto the roof to get an up close look at the restoration process.
Here's a challenge: find a roof in Indiana with more history, that's endured more struggle and returned more stunning than the West Baden Springs Hotel.
Its iconic dome, brought back from near-ruin by the Cook family, is a survivor, standing strong for more than a century.
"Eighth Wonder of the World, that's all I can say," French Lick Resort CEO Chuck Franz said. "I mean, it is the 8th Wonder of the World back in its day."
But that architectural marvel atop this national historic landmark met its match last summer.
"I've never seen anything like it," Franz said.
It took a catastrophic hit in a hailstorm.
On June 25, 2023, the skies of Orange County went from calm to chaos.
"You're talking hail that's bigger than my fist," said Jerry Hanger, French Lick Resort's director of housing and construction.
"First, it was quiet. Then, hail the size of your fist or baseballs started coming straight down for the next five minutes," Franz said. "And all you heard was shattering glass. The first thing was, 'Oh my gosh, is everyone OK?'"
They were. Nobody was hurt.
But that famous dome sustained serious damage.
Every single pane of glass – 77 in each of the 12 panels – got punctured.
924 panes in total.
"They were all damaged. There wasn't one that survived," Franz said. "The contractor said the holes that ended up there, you could put over a softball through. And you could see those from here."
It wasn't just the glass.
Tiles, shingles, and metal cupolas got hurt, too. The storm caused millions of dollars in damage.
Dings and dents destroyed 90-some roofs across the French Lick Resort property.
But the most prominent, that iconic dome, needed the most immediate attention.
The resort closed the atrium to guests right away and rolled up protective sheeting to keep more falling glass from damaging workers or the historic tile floor below.
The day after the storm, southern Indiana contractor RoofLynx got right to work on restoring history — yet again.
"He said to me, he said, 'When do you ever get to work on a structure like this?' He said, 'We want this,'" Franz said.
For the past nine months, crews have been bringing it back to life.
"It's not your normal roof job, let's put it like that. It's totally different," Hanger said. "The Cooks did it once back when they bought it, purchased it. And now you take the catastrophic hit that we took here, it's a job!"
PHOTOS: West Baden Springs Hotel repairs
On top of the dome, replacing the glass was the biggest challenge.
They had to come up with a 21st-century fix for 120-year-old materials.
"First, we looked at hurricane glass. That was one of the things. We looked at original glass," Franz said.
They eventually settled on something called "Lexan."
The new glass panels over the atrium aren't glass at all, but made from a thermoplastic polymer. It's shatter resistant, meant to make hail bounce right off.
"It's 250 times stronger than the glass. So it should be able to take a once-in-a-100-year storm hopefully," Franz said. "Indiana Landmarks weighed in on this, too. The family took the material to Indiana Landmarks and got it approved. It's really the only change."
But the actual work wasn't easy.
It's a painstaking process. Crews couldn't use much machinery or work from scaffolding because of the slope of the dome.
They had to carry all the materials and supplies up the side scaffolding, then lug it over the roof by hand.
Once they got up there, they had to hook onto a chain on the surface of the shingles, connect a rope to their body and scale down the dome to place all of the glass and shingles.
Video of the work shows crews on their stomachs, tethered to the dome, 130 feet in the air.
They had to pull off the damaged panels one by one, leaving gaping holes that look straight down into the atrium below.
Good luck if you're afraid of heights.
Perched precariously, these guys spent months putting all the hundreds of panes back in place.
Although the glasswork is finished, up on the roof, you can still see where hail left its mark. Shingle work is nearly complete, but a few areas still have holes spackled over.
Crews are now about to replace clay tiles on the membrane on the side of the dome.
Most of the damaged tile was original to 1902 and has to be attached carefully.
Franz showed us something special, too.
The original glass from the dome? You can now keep it.
In the gift shop, the resort is selling coasters made out of what fell in the hailstorm.
Some are made from panels from the 1997 renovation. Others are even older.
You can tell the difference in the age of the glass panes by the shape of the wire mesh inside the glass.
"Hexagon piece, see that? That is 1902. That's original," Franz explained, holding up the coaster.
For more than 100 years, part of the magic of this place is its ability to come back from catastrophe.
They've done it before.
And now, after weathering a storm, the 8th Wonder of the World is being reborn again.
"The community's behind it. The people who work here, they're all behind it. Although it was a horrific event, getting after it and getting fixed, it's been really a labor of love to put it back together," Franz said, "and we're coming to the end. That's what I'm glad about."
The resort says work should be complete on the dome by the end of April.
History of the West Baden Springs Hotel
Other restoration projects
There's another historic restoration at West Baden right now to a building abandoned during the Great Depression.
While in Orange County, we got a sneak peek inside.
It's the Bowling and Billiard Pavilion, across from the hotel, near the garden.
The structure has been vacant since the 1930s and even lost a wing years ago.
But now, construction crews are hard at work bringing it back.
They had to shore up the land and create a wall outside to protect it from flooding.
Work is underway inside, too, creating a space for bowling lanes, pool tables, arcade games, a pizza parlor and a bar.
Plus, they're adding some outdoor event space.
"We're bringing it back to life. It's probably the largest structure on property that we haven't restored yet, and we're bringing it back to the same life that it had 100 years ago," Franz said.
He said the new pavilion should be open by Labor Day.