By Randy Johnson
A few weeks ago, as Blowing Rock’s 27th WinterFest event came to a snowy and successful close, the Green Park Inn closed to guests along with it.
The historic, 131 year old, rambling, Grand Manor hotel ended its most recent 15-year run as Blowing Rock’s landmark lodging establishment under the ownership of New York hotel “affectionados” Steve Irace and his late brother Gene.
With his Saturday night performance at the hotel, Charlie Ellis also ended his decade-and-a-half-long weekend gig entertaining hotel guests, most recently with guitarists Don Miller and Dave Braun.
Besides Ellis and owner Steve Irace, the weekend wound down with general manager Lorry Mulhern in her usual spot anchoring customer service and celebrating the hotel’s popular weekend tradition of bringing Ellis to the many local fans of his classic, former local club, the Jazz Parlour.
Many locals were heard hoping that Ellis and his bandmates would find a new venue to continue the jazz tradition that has made Ellis’ music so popular over the years. “I can’t wait to hear Charlie play again very soon,” Mulhern confessed.
Ellis was gratified with those sentiments and said, “We would certainly be open to take a look at other performance opportunities. Happy to explore that!”
Mulhern offered that she’s “not sure what’s next,” for her career, but she expects that there will be “a number of months of wrap up duties” to perform as the Green Park winds down its operations. She expects to have a role for a time with the Irace family, who also own and operates two lodging properties in Florida that she currently oversees.
Reflecting on her time at the Green Park, Mulhern offered that, “what’s been the most memorable for me has been the guests. Welcoming them, getting to know them, some quite well, over the years, and especially, helping them to get to know the High Country has been an incredibly rewarding experience.”
Under the new ownership the hotel’s future includes a redevelopment currently moving through the approval process and that will include removal of the hotel’s two newest wings to make way for cottages (which the original hotel included) and the addition of townhomes where the current “golf wing” stands.
But the historic core of the hotel, dating to 1891, is expected to be restored and preserved as a smaller, more sustainable, but no less historic lodging landmark.
Many in the community hope that what re-emerges will be a boutique hotel that continues to reign as the “Grand Dame” of the High Country.
Mulhern feels certain the hotel will be reborn to “Grand Dame 2.0” status, and that “John Winkler and his partners, Bill Warden and Will Miller, will do a very good job ensuring that the hotel will continue as an anchor of the High Country. It’s been an honor to have been her steward for these past 15 years.”
There is still uncertainty about what will be learned about the condition of the old building once the project gets underway, but if plans go as hoped, Steve Irace and Mulhern will be able to take satisfaction in having helped the hotel embark on a new and exciting future.
“Blowing Rock grew up around the Green Park,” Mulhern noted. Indeed, more than that, the hotel has been part of the local landscape for so long that in a way, “the Green Park grew many of us up, too.”
Ellis marvels at the Green Park’s staying power. When “a public meeting was held to review the plans for the Green Park’s redevelopment,” he says, “they were expecting about 30 people—but 150 turned up!”
Here’s looking forward to an exciting new future for the Grand Dame, and to many years of musical sets from Blowing Rock’s piano man, wherever he and his bandmates land in the near term.
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