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There is an old saying that you can tell a person by the company they keep. There may be a corollary to that saying that you can tell a hotel by the guests who stay there. Case in point is a hotel in Ashville, North Carolina that my family and I recently visited.
The Grove Park Inn in Ashville, North Carolina was constructed between 1912 and 1913 from locally hewn granite boulders. The shingle style roof is made of red clay. The Inn is situated on the side of a hill, offering visitors sweeping views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the skyline of the city of Ashville. At the bottom of the hill is a Golf Course. The golf course preceded the Hotel.
I don’t have data on the number of families and individuals who were guests of the Inn over the last hundred years or so. Guests who enjoyed the cool air, the beautiful views, and the remarkable features of the Inn. But if you consider some of the special guests who stayed here, you start to appreciate the charm of the Grove Park Inn.
Ten US Presidents have visited the Inn. The visitor list includes William Howard Taft, Woodward Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight D Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George Bush, William Clinton, and Barack Obama.
Barack Obama even donated his golf clubs to the Inn. They are kept in a glass case in a room, aptly named, The Presidents Lounge.
Other guests at Grove Inn run the range of American luminaries. A partial list includes F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cardinal James Gibbons, Enrico Caruso, Henry Kissenger, Sandra Day O’Conner, Norman Vincent Peale, Will Rogers, John D Rockefeller, JR, General John Pershing, William Mayo, Dr John Harvey Kelllog, Thomas Eidson, Henry Ford, Helen Keller, William Jennings Bryan, Harry Houdini, Alex Haley, Bobby Jones, and Margaret Mitchell.
And then there is a special category. The spring of 1942 — shortly after the United States entered World War II — the State Department leased the Grove Park Inn as an internment camp for Axis diplomats, family members and servants. While the Italians, Bulgarians and Rumanians were there they were isolated from the community and protected from the curious. There was a total of 221 prisoners. They departed on May 6, 1942, in exchange for US diplomats held abroad. This reviewer wonders, had there been a loyalty program in effect at that time, would these guests been eligible for points?
Sources
- UNC Libraries Blogs
- WJE
Staying at the Grove Park Inn
Looking to add your name to the list of guests at the Grove Park Inn? This hotel can be expensive, but there are some good deals available right now. You can look for these deals here.