Housewarming

Railroader Robert R. Young had something new to show off. His Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. had paid the Government $4,000,000 for the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., famed watering place for pre-Civil War Southerners and resort for U.S. Presidents (13 had slept there). It had spent another $4,200,000 refurbishing it.

Last week, Bob Young gave hotelmen a splashy hang-the-cost exhibition of how he thought a hotel should be opened for business--and publicity. To 300 of the biggest wigs he could find, he sent invitations to his hotel-warming. In planes, automobiles and 14 private railroad cars they trooped in--Chase National Bank Chairman Winthrop Aldrich, Bing Crosby, Elsa Maxwell, Attorney General Tom Clark, the Duke & Duchess of Windsor (who arrived with 14 pieces of luggage to get them through their three-day stay), many another practitioner of the arts, professions and leisure-by-the-numbers.

Hotelman Young's troubles started fast. Many (45%) of the guests had barely been shown their rooms before they were clamoring to be changed to different quarters. Society Reporter Igor Cassini (Hearst's Cholly Knickerbocker) and his new wife (Elizabeth Darrach Waters) walked into their suite and found it occupied by Cassini's ex-wife ("Bootsie" McDonnell--also a columnist), who had been ushered in by mistake. (They compromised on adjoining suites.) Kaiser-Frazer's Joe Frazer and Otis & Co.'s Cyrus Eaton, currently feuding over K-F's stock troubles, spent the time busily dodging each other.

Drums by the Duke. Nevertheless, a good on-the-house time was had by nearly all. The guests roamed over the hotel's 6,500 manicured acres, rode over its 200 miles of bridle paths, played golf on its three courses, lounged in rooms that will cost paying customers from $17 to $65 a day. The windup was a glittering ball in the chandelier-hung ballroom. At its height, the Duke of Windsor, a good amateur hand at the drums, joined Meyer Davis's band and beat the skins (How Are Things in Glocca Morra?) as he did when he visited Greenbrier 29 years ago.

Reported Cholly Knickerbocker, in open-mouthed awe: "We doubt that even the Sultan of Turkey, the Emperor of China, or the Czar of Russia, when those fabulous courts were at their peak, ever attempted anything on a more colossal scale."

Drapes by Draper. For the lush background for his party, Railroader Young had depended on Interior Decorator Dorothy Draper, who had spent more than a year getting Greenbrier ready. She had broken through large areas of white stucco walls and moved Greenbrier's lobby from the second floor to sub-ground level. In it she placed $4,000 worth of palms (to be replaced as needed) to give an outdoor effect. Elsewhere, she used some of her typical tricks. To make some of the cavernous rooms more cozy, she set up latticed, movable walls. A typical bedroom had sky-blue walls, Tunis-blue furniture, sea-green draperies and carpet, and touches of red.

For the decorating job, Dorothy Draper, Inc. got $120,000. To the C. & O., this was only part of the worry. After redoing the local station on the C. & O. line, Mrs. Draper demanded that no smoke-belching locomotives be allowed within five miles of the place. But the coal-burning C. & O. put its foot down, let the steamers on through.

The party cost the C. & O. another $65,000 (not counting transportation and room costs). Was it worth it? Some hotel-men had their doubts. But the C. & O. had owned the hotel before the war (it had sold it to the Government for $3,300,000) and made a profit on it. Young had reason to hope that his hotelkeeping might be even more profitable this time. As his guests left for home, he happily reported: the publicity splash had helped book the Greenbrier until well into 1949.

The Louisville Times and Courier-Journal bought ads in Manhattan papers this week for a "memo to Mr. Robert R. Young, of the C. & O. (Who Writes Memos to the New York Central)." The papers said they had been enjoying his ads, admiring his hostesses and his "good try" on the no-tipping idea.

"But, Mr. Young," they said, "don't get so eager to become a director of the New York Central that you take your eyes off this end of the line ... In the past 30 days, your George Washington has been late into Louisville 16 times . . . The Sportsman has been late 18 times in the past 30 days, from two minutes on March 16 to three hours and ten minutes on March 27 ... Now, really, Mr. Young!

"And the equipment, Mr. Young! It's prewar--and not this last war, either . . . We don't have any streamliners, not to mention that Train X ... There used to be a lounge-dining car between here and Ashland, but the lounge went during the war and now we have to lounge the best way we can. We do see streamliners on your competition's road and we did have one roomette car out of Louisville--imagine that, Mr. Young, for 553,000people!-- but not on your railroad.

"YOO, HOO, MR. YOUNG! Look Down, Look Down This Lonesome Road Before . . ."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.