HIDDENITE - Wanted: Someone to buy 16-room bed and breakfast.
The Hidden Crystal Inn in Hiddenite will be sold, down to the linens used by its guests, at auction on July 22.
Lynn Hill, daughter of the late Eileen Sharpe, an arts visionary who opened the inn in 1989, said she wants to focus on her real estate sales and can't devote the time it takes to manage the establishment. She said her two siblings have no interest in running it.
Sharpe died in 2004 at age 94, after years of spending her wealth to boost Alexander County's arts community. Her husband, the late Ruel Yount Sharpe, started Pilot Freight Carriers in 1941 in Winston-Salem, transforming the one-truck operation into a national trucking empire. When his health started to fail, the couple sold Pilot in 1981 and returned to Hiddenite.
Eileen Sharpe started the nonprofit Lucas Mansion art museum and the Hiddenite Center arts and history education complex, as well as the inn.
Hill and her siblings hope a buyer will come forward to maintain the inn for its original purpose.
"It was a labor of love for Mother," Hill said.
Sharpe envisioned the Hidden Crystal, named for Hiddenite's precious gems, as an English-style country inn, similar to the Alexander County inns built around mineral springs in the early 20th century that she remembers from her childhood.
Each guest room is named for a different gemstone and takes its color scheme from it. Yellow is for topaz, purple for amethyst and, of course, green for emerald, the stone that made Hiddenite famous as a precious-gem source.
Murals show scenes of Alexander's past, and menus in the inn's restaurant detail Hiddenite's history.
The inn takes up four buildings on nearly 4 acres across from Hiddenite Elementary School, with 16 bedrooms and suites, and two swimming pools. County records list its tax value at $817,700.
Since Sharpe died and Hill, 65, branched into real estate in Blowing Rock, marketing of the inn for conferences and meetings dwindled.
And in another page of what has become the region's familiar story, Hill said the economic downturn in bedrock furniture and textiles took away the inn's bread and butter of traveling vendors and designers.
Even though Hiddenite lies off the beaten path, the inn is "reasonably close to major airports, yet secluded enough and adult enough so that people enjoyed it," said Dwaine Coley, Hiddenite Center director.
He remembers Sharpe's close involvement with the inn. "She loved to be the grande dame and sit at the door and make people feel welcome."
Inn Auction
Date: 11 a.m. July 22.
Location: 471 Sulphur Springs Road, Hiddenite.
Inspection times: 1-4 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, July 21 and before auction on July 22.
Details: 800-479-1763.
1 comment:
Mr. R. Y. Sharpe, founder of Pilot Freight Carriers will be inducted into the NC Transportation Hall of Fame on October 7, 2008 at a ceremony to be held at the High Point Country Club, High Point, NC. More info at www.ncthf.org
Post a Comment