Who doesn’t love a dinosaur? At select hotels around America, the opportunity to get up close to this era of history is real — and great prep if you’re anticipating the spring release of Jurassic World Rebirth. At The Dino Hotel in Lakeland, near Denver, the property’s décor includes a wide variety of faux dinosaur bones and interesting Jurassic memorabilia. At Faena Hotel in Miami Beach, the Mammoth Garden is the setting for Damien Hirst’s colossal gold plate wooly mammoth creation, “Gone But Not Forgotten;” and visitors to Montage Big Sky can participate in a fossil dig.

Another hotel, JW Marriott Plant Riverside District in Savannah, is a veritable museum of artifacts collected by Richard Kessler, Chairman and CEO of Kessler. Among them are two gigantic citrine and amethyst slabs, plus a replica of a massive fossil that greets anyone entering the lobby. We asked Kessler to tell us a little more about what guests can see and experience at the Savannah property.

Global Traveler: Tell us about the dinosaur at Plant Riverside District in Savannah. What kind is it, and how old?

© Kessler

Richard Kessler: In 2016, we contacted Dave Trexler, a paleontologist at Two Medicine Dinosaur Center in Bynum, Montana, and asked him to build the world’s largest dinosaur. They had built these models before but the process for a project of this size involved a lot of comparative research. The fossilized bones that guided the model were found in the 1870s in Colorado and named Amphicoelias Fragillimus. The dinosaur at Plant Riverside District is a chrome replica of its fossilized skeleton, one of the largest dinosaur fossils to have ever been discovered. This dinosaur itself was an herbivore known for its extremely long and slender body, standing roughly 22 feet tall and 135 feet long. There are more than 230 bones in the body and it took over two years to carve the bones from foam, and then coat them in plaster, primer and chrome paint.

GT: Why did you decide to showcase a dinosaur, other fossils and artifacts in the lobby space?

Kessler: Ever since I was a child, I have always loved nature, minerals and fossils; [they] fascinated me and I collected them all. When I walked into what would be the Plant Riverside District, I felt like this should be a museum, a place that would house a wonderful collection. Not only did we want to have a place to exhibit pieces of history, but we wanted something that would excite all and take it to the next level. We needed a dinosaur.

GT: Has that affected traffic to the property?

Kessler: Plant Riverside District’s dinosaur is the hallmark of the property. All over the country, people know us as the Dinosaur Hotel and come here specifically to see this feature. Staying at JW Marriott at Plant Riverside District feels like you are in the movie A Night at the Museum, where history is all around you and coming to life before your very eyes. Its impact on our bookings and overall property revenue is paramount to our success since opening in 2020. Since then, we have expanded into offering programming that includes a fossil scavenger hunt for kids, and history tours for people looking to immerse themselves in this piece of natural history.