Let's Get Lost

New Resort Offers Retreat in Central Texas Setting

Who wouldn't want to slip away to the new Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort & Spa? The new facility, built by Lyda Swinerton Builders, will offer guests a historical Central Texas ambience complete with an 18-hole golf course, a lazy river for tubing and the shade of pecan trees.

by Rob Patterson

Lyda Swinerton Builders is nearing completion on the resort outside of Austin on a 400-acre site above the Colorado River

The Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort & Spa near Bastrop, about 15 mi. east of Austin, blends in so seamlessly with its surroundings that guests may not detect at first glance that its main building is a 450,000-sq.-ft. structure housing 500 guest rooms and two ballrooms.

Lyda Swinerton Builders of San Antonio began construction on the resort in June 2004 on a 400-acre site on a bluff above the Colorado River adjacent to the McKinney Roughs Nature Park. The $135 million project is 90 percent complete and scheduled for a June opening. Lyda Swinerton's portion of the contract was $66 million.

"The biggest guiding force on this project was the site - a lovely meadow in a valley with these gorgeous and enormous pecan trees," said Doug Atmore, project architect for Hill Glazier Architects of Palo Alto, Calif. "We tried to be careful with the scale and the massing of the building and surgically insert the project into the site as cleanly as possible.

"The building rambles to do a couple of things. We wanted to dodge in and out of all the different trees to miss as many as we possibly could and to break down the scale of the building so it looks like a collection of smaller buildings woven through the trees."

To achieve that scale, the guest-room wings are three to four levels high and extend out from the center of the structure. The public spaces are a similar height.

"It was a challenge to get the layout of the building to weave into the site and through the trees," Atmore said. "Drawing it on paper was one thing. Actually making sure it worked in the field was another thing."

advertisement

In addition to the main structure, the project includes a 20,000-sq.-ft. spa building and a 25,000-sq.-ft. clubhouse serving the resort's 18-hole golf course. "The architectural styles took their cues from the local vernacular - very simple forms and building traditions," Atmore said.

The design of the entrance and guest reception area of the main building was based on the "dogtrot" farmhouse structures common to Central Texas. The ballroom wing of the structure utilizes the style and façade of small-town Texas harmony halls and features a 16,000-sq.-ft. main ballroom and a 8,000-sq.-ft. junior ballroom as well as 40 meeting rooms and banquet facilities.

Materials Evoke Tradition The frame of the main building is stainless galvanized structural steel studs on the guest wings and structural steel girders on the ballroom wing. "The framing was economical and went up quickly," Atmore said.

The walls are primarily a combination of cement hardy plank and prefabricated galvanized steel stud wall panels. Oklahoma sandstone faces the ballroom wing and is used as an accent throughout the project. The ballroom wing has a galvanized stainless-steel, standing-seam roof, and the guest wings are roofed with a combination of asphalt composition shingles and concrete tile shingles that resemble wood shakes.

Materials were selected to replicate natural products traditionally used in the Central Texas area. Above, workers complete the exterior of the restaurant building at Lost Pines.

The materials were selected to replicate natural products traditionally used on buildings in the area. "We took a lot of care to make sure that the uneducated eye would not know the difference," said Gary Coffman, senior vice president of Woodbine Development, the project's owner.

Manufactured materials also give the structure a greater permanence and fire resistance. "You also have to be careful about building things out of lumber in the area," Coffman said. "With the moisture content, it can be a maintenance nightmare. We deliberately set out to build a structure that looked like it was made out of lumber using synthetic products that would withstand that moisture."

Although the main building was erected around more than 60 old-growth pecan trees, three of the trees had to be removed. Those trees and others removed from the golf course were custom milled to provide flooring and trim in the lobby and restaurants and a bar in the main barroom. Douglas fir ceilings and trusses were used in the restaurants and reception area.

Lyda Swinerton constructed gunite swimming pools with a "lazy river" for guests to go tubing. A 5-acre irrigation pond, dug by Oliphant Golf Construction of Scottsdale, Ariz., provided 50,000 cu. yds. of fill for use under the foundations of the buildings. Oliphant also built the golf course.

The golf clubhouse is wood frame with hardy plank board and batten siding to replicate the traditional wooden barn designs of the region. It has an 11,000-sq.-ft. concrete basement.

The spa building is wood frame with a combination of limestone and corrugated metal siding. "It was a conscious decision to take the risk and use wood on the smaller buildings," Coffman said. He said that wood was more economical and flexible as well as true to the regional styles of the design.

The contractor and developer coordinated early purchases of materials to avoid higher costs due to rising steel and petroleum prices.

"Obtaining materials has been a difficulty, but we did a lot of prepurchasing," said Cliff Pawelek, project manager for Lyda Swinerton. "One of the best things we did was pave the parking area early on, so we were able to have significant laydown area for storage of materials."

Navigating the Waters The majority of the main building is on a concrete slab on grade. A 20-ft. deep basement underneath the meeting rooms and lobby that contains mechanical and electric equipment as well as housekeeping, laundry and data facilities extended below the 100-year flood plain of the Colorado River.

"The developer was concerned that if the ground becomes saturated, you would get a lot of hydrostatic pressure and water will be forced into every little nook and cranny of the basement," Atmore said. "The waterproofing system had to be designed and installed to resist that kind of pressure. All the waterproofing membranes had to have backings that were capable of resisting that force, and hydrophilic sealants that expand when it gets wet were used on the seams and conduits."

Woodbine felt it was critical to take extra measures to guard against even the least likeliest of scenarios. "No piping or conduit was allowed to penetrate the basement below the flood plain," Coffman said. "The basement is as watertight as the hull of a boat."

The horizontal structure of the main building required greater coordination than a vertical structure of a similar size.

"It's a little tougher to route water and utilities through the 10 acres of three to four stories than to route the same utilities though a 450,000-sq.-ft. high-rise building," Coffman said. The resort's remote site required utility providers to bring in lengthy pipes, conduits and wires to provide services including an 8-mi. gas line from the nearest pipeline.

The proximately to Austin affected the availability of workers. "Austin right now is one of the hottest spots in the state with a lot of building going on," Coffman said. "It has almost been a bidding war to keep the labor that's out there."