LAKE PLACID – The owners of the Northwoods Inn have begun a multi-million-dollar renovation and rebranding of the 91-room hotel.

CVC Hospitality Inc., a Florida-based company, began renovating the hotel on Monday. The workers are gutting the rooms and hallways of the hotel, starting on the sixth and highest floor and working their way down.

The rooms will undergo a complete redesign through March and April with custom-built furnishings being moved in. The old furniture is being donated to charity and veteran organizations.

In addition to the renovation, Northwoods Inn will be renamed, but the owners have not publicly announced its new name yet. They also have not said exactly how much money they plan to spend. The entire renovation and rebranding is expected to be done by May 15.

The building, the tallest on the downtown stretch of Main Street, was originally called the Hotel Marcy, built in 1926 and opened in 1927 as Lake Placid’s first “fire-proof” hotel. The original Northwoods Inn was next door, built in 1897 and destroyed by fire in 1966. The current Northwoods Inn is owned by a group of partners including brothers Garrick and Justin Smith, their father Gary Smith and partner Jamie D’Alessandro. They bought the hotel in 2005.

Garrick Smith said he hopes the renovation will make Northwoods Inn a premier lodging destination in Lake Placid.

“We’re very excited about the changes,” Garrick Smith said. “We think it will be a game changer for us.”

The group of owners borrowed from several sources to fund the renovation. Garrick Smith said he and the other partners had originally planned to renovate the hotel in 2008 but had to wait.

“The bottom dropped out of the economy,” he said. “Borrowing was extremely difficult.”

The hotel competes in the mid-level tourist market and doesn’t envision changing its base of customers after the renovation is complete.

“We want to retain our reputation of being an affordable access point in Lake Placid,” Garrick Smith said.

Each of the suites will have a refrigerator and a microwave after the renovation is complete. The hotel is also taking a technological leap, with high-speed Internet service installed and access to On Demand for its televisions. There will no longer be any kitchenettes in the hotel.

CVC Hospitality designed the rooms and will also install the furniture.

“I’m excited about it,” said Stacy Cotis, the superintendent of work for CVC Hospitality. “The promise this hotel has is going to be amazing.”

The room style will be “rustic” with an Adirondack-themed color scheme, Garrick Smith said.

“We asked for something that was design forward,” he said. “We weren’t looking for the traditional Adirondack theme that was too twiggy. The (color) palette is certainly consistent with this region, though.”

Volunteers from Madden’s Transfer of Saranac Lake have been helping move the furniture since Monday. The hotel is donating all of its old furnishings to several causes, including Family Champions of the North Country in Tupper Lake and to the veteran organization Soldier On, according to Garrick Smith. Furniture is expected to be available through Family Champions beginning on March 15.

Gary Smith, a Vietnam War veteran and member of the Homeward Bound Adirondacks Board of Directors, said he was pleased to make the donations to worthy causes.

“The furniture which is being donated is in good condition,” he wrote in a press release, “and it should be helpful to veterans and others. We needed to upgrade our furnishings and wanted to make sure that what was being removed has a second life.”