The original “Hotel Naples” neon sign is glowing above South Main Street again after about 40 years dark, following a restoration that brought it out of storage and back onto the historic building.
Owners Tom and Destiny Salviski said the sign's return to The Naples Hotel followed years of work by local craftsmen and help from the Naples Historical Society, which had preserved it in a warehouse.
The sign, about five feet long and nearly four feet tall, once hung above the hotel's front porch. Its border and lettering were originally traced in neon, but the glass had been smashed and removed before it returned to the hotel in 2020.
A sign returned during the shutdown
The Salviskis bought the vacant, shuttered hotel in March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted travel, restaurants and bars. Their plans for a quick reopening had to wait.
“We bought a hotel the same week the whole world stopped going out,” Tom Salviski said.
Not long after the purchase, Wayne Bouchard of the Naples Historical Society contacted Salviski and brought an enclosed trailer to the hotel. Inside was the original sign, familiar to Salviski from photographs of the building.
“I knew that sign from the old pictures,” Salviski said. “Seeing it in person, and having the Historical Society trust us with it, was one of those moments you don't forget. It told me this town wanted the hotel to make it.”
By then, he said, the sign was “just a peeling shell.”
New neon and a custom roof bracket
Craftsmen at Crystal City Signs spent the next couple of years rebuilding the neon, repainting the sign and restoring it to working order. Salviski received the finished sign in late 2025.
Gerry Hoppough, a welder from Cohocton, designed and fabricated a custom steel bracket to suspend it from the hotel's roof. Salviski and bar manager Michael Farms hoisted the sign onto the roof and mounted it. Salviski installed each piece of neon glass and connected the power supply.
“I waited six years to see this sign lit up on this building,” he said. “I wanted to be the one to put the glass in. Seeing it glow over Main Street again after 40 years dark was worth every bit of the wait.”
“It's a special thing to take an artifact out of our collection and return it to people who will protect and restore it,” Bouchard said.
The hotel, established in 1895, has 10 restored suites on its second and third floors, a restaurant and taproom on the first floor, and a lower-level party and event space.
The sign is illuminated each evening at 111 S. Main St. in Naples.
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