Keeping Hope in their hearts: Iconic matriarch of NASWA Resort dies at 100

LACONIA — Hope Makris, who for more than 80 years helped run one of the region’s most iconic hospitality businesses, has died. She was 100.

According to her obituary, Makris died on May 29. She was predeceased by her husband Peter, with whom she had three daughters. She also leaves behind four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Calling hours will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 4, at the Carriage House at Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home; funereal services will take place at 11 a.m. on Thursday, June 5, at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Concord, with burial following at Union Cemetery in Laconia. A celebration of life will be held at the NASWA Resort at 2 p.m. that day.

Makris was born on Dec. 5, 1924, to parents James and Fannie Salta, and helped run the family business, founded in 1935. Called the NASWA — a portmanteau of “natural spring water” — the business specialized in bottling water from a spring on the side of Weirs Boulevard, which at the time was the predominant route taken by travelers heading to and from the White Mountains. It was their hospitality, though, which proved even more refreshing.

The NASWA grew from a few roadside cabins to an establishment that today offers a hotel, motel, fine dining restaurant and beach bar, in addition to individual cabins available for rent, with many guests returning season after season, and some, generation after generation.

Makris dedicated herself to her family and the family business. As her obituary describes, she graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1946, and her parents sent her to Boston to bring back a husband. She returned with Peter Makris, a recent graduate of Suffolk Law School, whom she married in 1950. Three years later, the young couple purchased the business from her parents.

Ken Erickson, retired fire chief for Laconia, said it was nearly 50 years later when he first met Makris.

“I came up here in ‘01 as chief, I was looking for a place to stay,” Erickson recalled. It was at the start of the off-season, and the NASWA, a seasonal business, was experimenting with staying open through that winter, so they were happy to give Erickson a room.

A short while later, the family realized there wasn’t enough demand to keep the place open, but they wouldn’t back out on the promise they made to Erickson. Hope and Peter were wintering in Florida, so they told their daughter Cynthia, who now runs the NASWA, to move Erickson — a person they had never laid eyes on, as well as his wife — into their own home.

“That’s how wonderful they are. They didn’t know me from a hole in the wall,” Erickson said. Spring came, and the couple returned, and made sure their guests knew they were welcome to stay as long as they needed. From there, Erickson and his wife grew into such close friends that when Peter died, Erickson was asked to be among his pallbearers.

Mayor Andrew Hosmer first got to know Makris around the same time as Erickson, when the Hosmers moved to area and were getting to know their new home.

“I don’t think anyone in my family had been to the NASWA before. When we discovered it, we realized what a remarkable place it was,” Hosmer said.

Makris, said Hosmer, was “a special, special person and always a gracious host. ... It was always wonderful to go to, you didn’t feel like you were goin to a stranger’s restaurant, it was like being welcomed as family as much as anything. That’s what makes the NASWA so special, and Hope as well.”

That standard of hospitality continues, as do the efforts the family has made to support causes such as veterans support, and outfitting the Laconia Fire Department with life-saving equipment.

“Those fantastic qualities of kindness and generosity live on,” Hosmer said. “It’s also the legacy of good deeds that lives on, which is so impressive.”

Charlie St. Clair, director of Laconia Motorcycle Week Association, said he has known Makris since he was a teenager, as he's part of the extended family. He got to know her better through his work with Motorcycle Week, and as someone who has watched the development of Weirs Beach, and he said she earned his admiration.

“Hope is really old-school when it comes to hands-on working,” St. Clair said, “she remained that way all the way up to the most recent times.”

St. Clair said the word “icon” is largely over-used today, “but she was an icon in every sense of the word.

“I’m going to miss her a lot, I know I am. I’m glad she was a part of my life, as much as she was. I’m lucky to have that.”

Gov. Kelly Ayotte marked Makris' death when she visited Marine Patrol headquarters in Gilford Friday for a press conference.

Ayotte attended Makris’ 100th birthday party in October, and also the Peter Makris Memorial Run held during Motorcycle Week last year, before Ayotte was elected governor.

“What a patriot, what an amazing woman, what a role model for other women. You think about her strength with the NASWA and building that business with her husband, but what she's done for our veterans, for our community,” Ayotte said. “I mean, when I think about the best of America, I think about Hope Makris. It's a true loss, but I think she's an icon. We all looked up to her, and it's a real loss to the family, to Cynthia, the entire family.”

Of all the superlatives expressed about Makris, the only person who might object would be the subject of those accolades herself. Erickson, who attended a celebration held last year to honor Makris’ lifetime of service to the state’s hospitality industry, said at one point during the party she turned to him and said, “I don’t know why I get all this fuss, I’m just a cook.”