It’s not hard to see the bones of the old Bingen School — the creaky-floored gym, the old rural classrooms — but by the time you’re neck-deep in the soaking pool or lounging in a hammock, looking up at the hills of the Columbia River Gorge, it’s hard to imagine this place as anything other than societyhotel. The boutique hotel, which established its original Portland location in 2015, expanded into the Columbia Gorge in 2019 with The Society Hotel Bingen (pronounced BIN-jen), taking over a historic 1937 schoolhouse in the tiny town on the Washington side of the river. The gorgeous spa building, designed by Portland firm Waechter Architecture (which also designed the surrounding ring of cabins), is an irregular geometric form that stands apart from the rolling hills that rise above it. A large skylight and accordion windows on all sides let in light (and sometimes air) that keep the space open. It’s a stark contrast to the dark, cavernous spas that have cropped up across the Northwest...