Building a 'grand' view : New Hampshire landscapers partner with a developer to restore...

Kevin Craffey knew he had a job on his hands in bringing the century-old Mountain View Grand Hotel back to life. The historic hotel in Whitefield, NH, had been vacant since 1986. It had started to fall apart. So had its landscape.

The problem: start from scratch

"The landscape was gone," says the owner of Craffey & Company, a general contracting firm based in Hanover, MA. He bought the resort hotel in 1998 with visions that he and his crew could recondition it and reopen it again in a few months.

Now, after three years of hard work and intense and