Founded by the Green Park Company, a group of three businessmen from Lenoir, NC led by Civil War veteran Major George Washington Findlay Harper, the hotel first opened to guests in the busy summer of 1891. According to an 1892 promotional brochure authored by Harper, the hotel was constructed in hopes of providing the area with “a more comfortable summer home” and built with particular concern for the comfort of its guests.
The original structure spanned over 73,000 square feet on an extensive acreage then known as Green Park. In April of 1891, just prior to the inn’s opening, the Lenoir News wrote to the public that the building would feature sixty guest rooms furnished with fireplaces, running water, and electric bell alarms. It contained the three levels, restaurant, and bar still present today as well as hot and cold bath amenities, a ball room, billiard room, bowling alley, shooting gallery, tennis court, and a telegraph and post office for public use. The Green Park Inn continued to house the only United States Post Office in the area for many years and now keeps a portion of its first sorting system in the History Room of the hotel.
Throughout the 133 years of her lifetime, this Grand Dame of the High Country has hosted a number of memorable figures - Annie Oakley, J.D. Rockefeller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Margaret Mitchell (who penned part of "Gone With the Wind" while a guest at the inn), as well as musical group The Smiths to mention a few.
In May, 2010, the Green Park Inn was purchased by New York hoteliers and brothers Eugene and Steven Irace. The building was entirely refurbished through summer and early fall of that year and would undergo extensive infrastructure repair and modernization.
At present, the hotel features eighty-eight guest rooms; multiple common areas, including a lobby, library, and tea room; two event spaces, the Carolina Room and the Blue Ridge Room; the bar, now known as the Divide Tavern; and the updated restaurant rechristened as the Chestnut Grille in 2013. The inn recently launched a fitness center available to guests - the very first in its history.
The Green Park Inn was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 with consideration given to the hotel's physical location straddling the Eastern Continental Divide and its significance throughout the rich history of North Carolina and the High Country. She stands as the last of the grand manor hotels in all of western North Carolina, as well as the state's second oldest operating resort hotel.
The proprietors and staff of the Green Park Inn anticipate even more history being created throughout the many years to come as we welcome you to, and welcome you back to, the Historic Green Park Inn.
The Green Park Inn is a member of Historic Hotels of America®, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation for recognizing and celebrating the finest historic hotels across America.
