RiverWalk at Loon’s grand opening set for June

Luxury resort’s first phase features 79 suites and amenity ‘firsts’

May 18, 2016

NH Business Review Staff,

The grand opening of the eagerly awaited Riverwalk Resort at Loon Mountain, a luxury lodging facility that will eventually feature 170 units built on the site of an abandoned paper mill in Lincoln, is scheduled for June.

RiverWalk at Loon LLC recently completed the first phase, a seven-story building consisting of 79 suites in a full-service and fractional ownership hotel. Eventually, the resort will feature 170 units.

The 188-foot-high structure is the tallest building north of Concord high, a size and grandeur aimed at rivaling such North Country grand resorts as the Omni Mount Washington and the Balsams.

NH Travel Council honors Ducharme

Dennis Ducharme, president of InnSeason Resorts, has been named the NH Travel Council’s Mildred Beach Travel Person of the Year.

The award is presented to an individual who has made significant and personal contributions to the travel industry’s advancement during the previous year.

Ducharme was nominated by Alyssa Yolda, executive director of the Western White Mountains Chamber of Commerce, who called him “an incredible community activist, a driving force for our economic development and a gracious, humble and grounded person to work with here in the western White Mountains.”

Ducharme has been involved in New Hampshire’s tourism industry since 1993, with the redevelopment of Pollard Brook Resort in Lincoln. Ducharme, who received the Eileen Rice Outstanding Business Leader of the Year Award in 2015, serves as a member of a range of regional hospitality and tourism committees, including multiple branches of the American Resort Development Association in the northeast, NH Lodging and Restaurant Association, White Mountains Attractions and Ski NH.

His latest project is RiverWalk Resort at Loon Mountain, a 170-room luxury resort complex in downtown Lincoln.

“Receiving this award is a great honor considering the talent and dedication of so many members of our tourism industry in New Hampshire,” said Ducharme, “I may provide the pillows, the comfort and the safety for our guests, but it is our tourism industry partners that provide the fun and adventure that bring visitors to New Hampshire year after year.”

“We want our guests and owners of RiverWalk to experience something exceptional, and our new resort embodies this vision,” said Dennis Ducharme, president of RiverWalk at Loon LLC as well as InnSeason Resorts, a chain of resorts across New England.

Ducharme said the resort will feature several amenities that are “firsts in the industry,” such as a commercial winery on premises and an indoor/outdoor swimming pool that is engineered to convert to an ice skating rink during the winter.

Other on-site amenities at RiverWalk include a an upscale Italian restaurant, full-service spa, state-of-the-art game room and luxury owner’s club. The indoor/outdoor pool boasts the only technology utilized in the United States that will allow it to be transformed into an ice skating rink during the winter months.

“This development is an immense transformation from the paper mill of yesteryear to what it is today,” adds Ducharme.

One-, two- and three-bedroom suites at RiverWalk include full kitchens and master bedrooms with soaker tubs. All the sleeping quarters feature views of the White Mountains and Loon Mountain Ski Resort.

Ducharme said construction of Phase 2 of the project is slated to start in 2017, along with the Doppelmayr Gondola that will cross the Pemigewasset River and will land resort guests at the base of Loon Mountain. The gondola consists of six eight-passenger cabins.

The next phase will also include additional retail shopping and dining.

“This development is an immense transformation from the paper mill of yesteryear to what it is today,” said Dennis Ducharme, president of RiverWalk at Loon LLC. While reservations for June are already being accepted, an official opening event is planned later that month.

Categories: Restaurants, Retail & Tourism