For Chateau Victoria Hotel & Suites employee Glenn Waddingham, Lego provides the perfect chance to relax.
“Definitely, you just put on the radio and sit there for three hours or six hours thinking it’s one hour,” says Waddingham.
When COVID-19 first hit Waddingham found himself with a lot of new found time on his hands, so he decided to create a next level Lego project.
Utilizing thousands of photos for reference, Waddingham set about recreating the Chateau Victoria brick by brick.
“What went into it was 62,000 pieces, it’s not all from Lego, a lot of it is used pieces that you order online and about 125 different orders,” says Waddingham.
“There’s about 100 people in it and about half the people are real people for the mini figures.”
The project took a year and a half to complete, with some pieces taking longer to find than others.
“One of our windows I needed for our traditional rooms was only made until 1980, so I had to get them from all over the world,” says Waddingham.
“Just finding the special emotional pieces like our dog from our statue out front that took a while and it was worth it.”
The details are all there, from the furniture and paintings in the lobby to the Vista 18 restaurant.
“It’s been a really neat landmark within a landmark for people to sort of gauge what else is around the hotel,” says Chateau Victoria Hotel & Suites sales & marketing manager Chantelle Dean.
“They’re discovering things about the hotel that they wouldn’t necessarily have access to just riding the elevator.”
Now displayed proudly in the lobby, the mini hotel is creating quite the buzz among guests and staff alike.
“I thought there would be a couple of people like me who would appreciate models and things and almost everybody has frankly been floored,” says Dean.
“It’s been very humbling.”
Cole Sorenson
