For a structural engineer, The Westman Hotel in Bend, Oregon, has a bit of everything: reinforced concrete, steel, wood framing, and the requirements of historic preservation and adaptive reuse. Named for 1880s postal worker Minnie Westman who delivered mail by horseback throughout the west, the newly renovated Westman Hotel retains its original 1933 Neo-Classical and Art Deco styles as well as its original title of “United States Post Office” in gold lettering out front.
“The design for this building was very technically challenging,” says AV Project Engineer Chris Huffman. “We couldn’t touch any of the exterior walls that were above ground because they needed to preserve the historic nature of the building. Throw in retaining walls for below-grade dug-out patios, which are more nuanced details, and the design got pretty iterative.”
While hotel guests and patrons of Minnie’s Bar may be dazzled by the original floor-to-ceiling windows and blending of modern luxury with historic charm, the engineers in the room may wonder about the secrets kept inside these 100-year-old walls. For example, during early discovery, the structural team asked the construction crew to open up the ceiling to better understand what was inside and found rows of clay moulding. Turns out, back in the 1930s they used to lay ribbed clay tiles down in a wave-like pattern to create the formwork. They’d place rebar in the grooves and pour concrete overtop to create a lightweight concrete floor. That clay formwork remains inside the floor and roof decks today.
Because the original blueprints weren’t located until a few years into the project, the design team had to make a lot of early assumptions based on early discovery. While initial investigations revealed that the project was viable, they were still tackling a landslide of unknowns.
“Anytime you’re dealing with existing buildings, you first gather as much information as you can about what’s there and what’s been done since it was originally built,” says Chris. “We visited the site to confirm our assumptions or change our assumptions based on what we could see. For this project, we did selective demo to learn which way the reinforced concrete purlins were spanning and if there were any supplemental steel beams. We did some rebar scanning because we truly didn’t know how the concrete beams were reinforced. Once we knew what we were working with, then we could actually start doing the analysis and detailing.”
Interior of the Bend Post Office, 1933.
Interior of the Westman, 2026.
Original blueprints arrived late in the design process. Courtesy of the Deschutes Historical Museum.
Typically, blueprints for government buildings can be found in city, county, state, or national archives, and because this was the region’s first reinforced concrete structure, funded by the 1930 President Hoover Public Buildings Program (an effort to stimulate job growth during the start of the Great Depression), the design team scoured the typical records repositories only to come up short. Two years into the design, the blueprints were finally found hiding in plain sight where nobody thought to look: across the street at the Deschutes Historical Museum.
“When we eventually got the original plans, it was a major boon for us,” Chris says, “because they show almost everything about the building.” Even so, more than once contractors in the field found something unexpected that the design team hadn’t accounted for.
“There was one particular section,” Chris recalls, “where we opened up a wall to see an original stairwell and there was a concrete beam being supported basically by a brick chimney. We had assumed that the concrete beam went from one concrete column to another only to find it’s actually just sitting on brick with a massive point load coming down on it. So we put a new steel column onto the existing concrete, and we had to get that load from where it was to the next available concrete column. To do that, we attached steel channels on either side and infilled with grout to ensure the steel had full contact with the existing jagged concrete beam.”
Interior of the Bend Post Office, 1933.
Interior of The Westman, 2026.
Another challenge was simply the number of moving parts. The complexity of a single building utilizing wood, concrete, and steel design elements requires more detailing and an in-depth understanding of how each material functions individually and together. Chris explains, “The existing roof and floors consist of reinforced concrete purlins spanning between larger reinforced concrete beams, which span between reinforced concrete columns that continue down to the basement level. Between level one and level two are new guest room lofts built with light gage steel studs and floor joists. The basement level is reinforced concrete slab-on-grade surrounded by reinforced concrete retaining walls, which we expanded on the north and south sides to include outdoor patio areas for lower-level rooms to have more natural daylight and patios with radiant heating.”
All these elements add complexity to an already multifaceted design. Additionally, the change in occupancy from business to hotel required careful examination of the building code while the adaptive reuse meant working out how to preserve the historical, unreinforced concrete exterior while updating the building to modern standards.
Luckily, there was little need to touch the exterior of the building other than a slight remodel of a rear loading dock that required the addition of shearwalls for independent lateral support and a few minor openings on the uppermost level, neither of which impacted the structural integrity of the original exterior.
Bend Post Office under construction, 1933.
The Westman, 2026.
When you look at the building today, the outside appears nearly identical to the historic photos, aside from the ADA ramp that was added in the 1980s and a few other functional modifications. Inside, the walls of postal boxes have been replaced by a comfortable and inviting lobby, bar, lounge, and guest rooms. It still feels like a place people have been gathering for generations to share news, collect mail, and pass time with friends.
The back of the Bend Post Office as it was being constructed, 1932.
The back of the Westman, 2026.
The owner’s dedication to honor the building’s history while updating it with modern standards and aesthetics is both its charm and challenge. “For being almost 100 years old, the building was in really good shape,” says Chris. When the team finally found the original blueprints, they were impressed by their incredible thoroughness and professionalism. “Being part of the history and getting to review 100-year-old plans, to take that information and make it into something different, make it something safe and beautiful, was really special,” says Chris.
Next time you’re in Bend, stop by the corner of NW Wall and NW Franklin, just a few blocks away from the Ashley & Vance Engineering office, and step inside this independently owned boutique hotel. Enjoy the seamless elegance of the region’s first reinforced concrete building (1933) and appreciate the nearly five years of design and engineering it took to transform this historical post office into a completely reimagined space.
Photo Credits:
- Historical photos credited to National Park Services Gallery, National Registrar or Public Places, Bend Old Post Office
- Modern photos by Ashley & Vance Engineering
