Ormsby House co-owner Don Lehr poses next to a new european style window in one of the 104-suite rooms in 2016.
Don Lehr, who spent the past 20-plus years working to restore, repair and reopen the Ormsby House hotel in downtown Carson City, died March 27 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He was 92.
Lehr and business partner Al Fiegehen made their fortune as founders and owners of Cubix Computer Corp., a maker of computer hardware and software specializing in video technology.
Lehr graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in engineering physics. He worked for General Electric and General Automation before teaming up with Fiegehen to open Cubix in Carson City.
He was known as an entrepreneur and a guy who could fix anything.
The Ormsby House was built and opened in 1972 by then-former governor and future U.S. Sen. Paul Laxalt.
It went through several owners before Lehr and Fiegehen bought it in 1999. They intended to reopen it as soon as possible but shut it down a year later after determining that a full renovation was necessary.
That renovation consumed Lehr’s time and several million dollars for more than 20 years.
The work included gutting the interior of the building and draining the indoor swimming pool that had leaked into the floors below it for years as well as restructuring the building’s concrete floors that he said were flawed and cracked from day one.
It also included his conversion of the hotel’s 220 rooms into about half that many suites, replacing and modernizing the HVAC system, plumbing and electrical systems.
Lehr made repeated attempts to sell the Ormsby House over the years. The most recent asking price was $15 million.
All of the deals fell through.
Lehr is survived by his wife of 67 years, Valarie, daughters Robin, Linda, and Pam; nine grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
