It’s not an everyday occurrence to hoist a 1956 Greyhound Scenicruiser bus 10 stories to the top of a hotel, but the Bobby Hotel, a lifestyle boutique hotel located just a few boot-clad steps from Nashville, Tenn.’s historic downtown, did just that.
The bus features two hydraulic doors, one on the side and the other at the rear, to create space for customers of the Bobby Hotel’s rooftop lounge. A dual-pump system for each door, with its electric motors, was placed 60-feet away inside the swimming pool mechanical room. They operate the hydraulic cylinders to lift and close the 18-foot, 6-inch by 8-foot side door and the 8- by 9-foot rear bus door. The doors can be opened and closed with handheld remote openers.
Castlerock Asset Management, which undertook the adaptive reuse of the Wells Fargo Plaza building into the Bobby Hotel, enlisted Hemphill Brothers Coach Co. to redesign the bus for the top of the 1970s office building. The Nashville-based company is a creator of custom tour buses.
The bus had to be stripped down from its original 20,000 pounds to lighten the load before hoisting it to the rooftop with a crane. Hemphill Brothers Coach Co. gutted the whole drive train and interior and had to widen the bus by 4 feet. Where it’s situated, the bus looks like it could be driven off the building.
“Bobby Hotel wanted the front half of the bus to appear like the original coach,” explains Gary Favinger, technical support and fabrication for Hemphill Brother Coach Co. “The seats were all reupholstered with overhead lighting added. We searched around and found amazing doors with fail-safes built into the hydraulics. We cut half the side off the bus and built a structure to support it and rebuilt the back door opening. The people at the Bobby Hotel were blown away by the whole deal. There’s never been a bus with side and rear doors opening up on top of a hotel. It’s a one-of-a-kind.”
PHOTOS: Jeff King and Gary Favinger, Hemphill Brothers Coach Co.