LITTLE ROCK — WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, West Va. — In 1778, an early settler of what is now West Virginia named Mrs. Anderson discovered that her rheumatism miraculously improved by bathing in an Appalachian mountain spring. Ever since, visitors looking for a cure have flocked to those restorative waters at what became The Greenbrier, a lavish 6,500-acre playground in White Sulphur Springs.
Today The Greenbrier looks like the White House on steroids, a massive Greek Revival mansion with wide wings, acres of colorful, well-tended flower beds and lawns dotted with 17th- and 18thcentury cottages.
The interiors are equally eye-popping thanks to Dorothy Draper, noted interior designer, whose flamboyant style became the signature of America’s best-known resort after World War II.
The Draper look is exuberant, bold and bright. Intense colors. Black-and-white checkerboard marble floors. Florid Baroque plasterwork. Roses and rhododendrons, the state flower of West Virginia, splashed on sofas, walls and acres of carpeting. A commonly quoted view of Draper is that “she had an unlimited budget, which she overspent.”
The Greenbrier lost nothing of its colorful pizzazz when Draper retired and her protege, Carleton Varney, bought the firm, and, as design consultant, gives his own spin to the famous Greenbrier style.
From a collection of tents and log cabins in Indian country, and the antebellum decades and its years as a Civil War hospital, through a century-long era of train travel plus 26 presidents who enjoyed its pleasures, The Greenbrier’s rich history touches on great swaths of American life since the Declaration of Independence.
No wonder The Greenbrier calls itself “America’s Resort.”
Robert Conte, the resort’s resident historian, regards the antebellum decades as its heyday, when Southern aristocracy flocked to hear charismatic Henry Clay, presidential candidate and speaker of the House, and see Robert E. Lee, who summered here so his arthritic wife could take the waters.
In front of the Presidential Cottage Museum, Conte, whose engaging daily tours span 230 years of local life, points to the second floor porch of the pretty white building filled with memorabilia of the five sitting pre-Civil War presidents who occupied it.
“A good number of Southern politicians loved to declaim to the crowds on the rolling lawn below,” says Conte, adding, “and one well-known contemporary politician who can’t resist the open-air platform.”
As for the spacious, green lawn it overlooks, and the columned cupola over the original spring, whose waters are piped into a holding tank en route to the spa for treatments, “it looks pretty much as it did in the antebellum heyday.”
With an interruption during the Civil War, the Greenbrier flourished into the 20th century, when the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway bought it for a European-style health spa, launching an era of leisure railroad travel that brought a new clientele from the Midwest and Northeast, and a booming business.
One of the hotel’s most intriguing chapters is the underground fallout shelter built for Congress beneath the hotel, President Eisenhower’s idea for an emergency relocation center, about 250 miles southwest of Washington. In 1958 four years of secret construction began, camouflaged by concurrently building a hotel wing on top of it. For 30 Cold War years, The Bunker was a vigilantly kept secret until a sharp Washington Post reporter broke the story in 1992.
Today all its James Bondian secrets are revealed on daily tours into the underground facility that could accommodate 1,100 people — legislators could take one aide each, no family invited — through the cafeteria, dormitories, communications center, decontamination chambers, clinic, power plant, with everything in a constant state of readiness. No one ever used it.
Fast forward to the end of the century, the demise of leisure rail travel, and a grand hotel fallen into bankruptcy. Enter Jim Justice, an affable, enthusiastic West Virginia coal entrepreneur, and what he saw as a great deal: $20 million for America’s most famous resort — with the expectation of pouring a lot more into it.
In the hotel’s latest incarnation, Justice is reshaping its image from a genteel, rather stuffy golf resort and corporate hideaway to a laid-back, multigenerational playground with an astonishing range of activities for the whole family. Of course, there are golf, tennis, horseback riding and a 40,000-square-foot spa, but who wo u l d e xpect a 55-foot alpine climbing tower, geocaching, treetop canopy touring or paintball? Guests can perfect country gentlemen’s skills at the Gun Club, Falconry Academy, and Equestrian Center, and extreme adventuring by whitewater rafting, off-road driving and mountain biking.
For evening entertainment, a 300-seat theater shows current movies every night. A weekly musical — this year it’s Rockin’ the ’50s — and megastars like The Black Eyed Peas, Tim McGraw and Keith Urban are high-season headliners.
The newly liberated Greenbrier now has — gasp! — a casino, more Monte Carlo dash than Las Vegas flash. In a nod to Southern gentility, every night at 10, two couples in formal dress glide down the red-carpeted stairway to dance The Greenbrier Waltz as casino guests are served flutes of champagne.
Just about everything at The Greenbrier is oversize, from the number of golf courses (four) and eateries (13), to 6-foot-7-inch Justice, whose mega moves are generating excitement. He persuaded the PGA Tour to bring a $6 million competition to the resort and named it The Greenbrier Classic, a major coup for a golf-besotted resort where legendary Sam Snead was a longtime pro. The premier new restaurant is Prime 44 West, a steakhouse named after Justice’s pal Jerry West, basketball great who wore No. 44 for the Los Angeles Lakers, that features a 44-ounce porterhouse and hard-to-get reservations.
Justice’s newest venture is a Washington-Greenbrier train refurbished by Varney to recapture the golden era of train travel. Starting in July, the 15-car Presidential Express, including a boardroom, dining, salon and open-air cars, will arrive Wednesdays and depart Sundays, with passengers met by horse-drawn carriages.
“We want to bring back the glamour of rail travel,” Justice says. “Everything from the decor to the food will make you feel as if you are already at the resort.”
And once there, look for a second heyday.
Of the Greenbrier Resort’s 710 rooms, 125, most of them oneto-five-bedroom suites, are scattered around the grounds among dozens of pretty, white cottages and estate houses. Rates range from $359 to $599 per room, per night, single or double occupancy. Spa, golf and other packages are offered. Information is available and reservations can be made by calling (800) 453-4858 or at www. greenbrier.com.
Daily tours of The Bunker last 90 minutes; $30 per adult, $15 per child (ages 10-18), reservations required, (800) 624-6070.
Delta and Continental serve the Greenbrier Valley Airport in Lewisburg, W. Va., where a hotel shuttle picks up guests for the 15-minute ride to the resort.
Travel, Pages 54 on 10/02/2011