WINDER - The final sunset, the final twilight, is approaching for an icon in downtown Winder. With demolition scheduled early next year for the Granite Hotel, there are memories of how the old building, now lifeless, was once full of warmth and life and shaped the lives of people who stayed there.
"It was a beautiful place," recalled Martha Blalock, at the Barrow County Historical Society, housed in the old county jail, down the street and within view of the hotel's granite walls at the corner of Broad and Athens Streets.
Winder's city council voted on December 6 to approve a $178,000 demolition bid on the two-story building. Council members said there was no way to justify not tearing it down because of the cost of restoring it, and in the current recession, the lack of development funding available for the task.
The job of bringing the Granite down is liable to be ticklish; extra care is needed to avoid damaging other buildings and city streets before the site can become a "pocket park," part of Winder's streetscape project plan.
The demolition cost is just the latest entry in the city's ledger of Granite Hotel expenses. The Winder Downtown Development Authority (DDA) purchased the hotel in December 2004 with $200,000 provided by the city. City officials spent at least $230,000 to stabilize the building, but time and the elements continued to wear the Granite down.
Developers have not helped. Bids to buy the Granite from the DDA hit financial snags and those snags meant no real renovation efforts. The old hotel is in such poor shape city officials cannot see investing any more money in preservation.
The Granite is not only in the center of Winder, it is in the center of the town's history. The Granite was built in 1899 on the site of the original "Jug Tavern," a double log cabin where travelers were served corn whiskey in brown fired jugs, hence the town's original name, "Jug Tavern." The Granite, with its estimated 28,000 square feet, remains the largest locally quarried granite building in the state. Its granite blocks came from a quarry south of town owned by Winder founder Wiley Bush, whose son-in-law C.M. Ferguson was a granite mason and is credited with building the hotel.
"We're very upset because it's part of history and our ancestors, we just hate to see it torn down," Martha Blalock said. Since the Granite is soon to disappear, she said she plans to create an information pamphlet about it so people will remember it. It will be available at the museum.
"It will have pictures of what the hotel looked like when it was first built and then, sad to say, the way it looks now," she said. "It had a restaurant, the rooms were nice and it was a good place to live. It was a good place to be when you came to visit friends in Winder or to do business in Winder."
That's the way 92-year-old Virginia "Ginny" Barron remembers the Granite. Following her service as an Army nurse in Burma during World War ll, she and her husband Bill stayed at the Granite for six months until they could move into an apartment during the housing shortage days in Winder following the war in 1945.
In those days, the Granite's owner, a Mrs. Couch, served home- cooked meals in the hotel dining room on the first floor three times a day and downtown business people would stop in for lunch. A number of senior residents boarded at the hotel as well as the overnight guests. The second-story rooms were not elaborate, but they were comfortable.
"People there were friendly," Mrs. Barron remembered. "It was just like family in a hometown, hospitable hotel."
After the 1940s, the Granite began the journey to the broken, boarded-up place it is now, falling into gradual disrepair until the final visitor lodged there in 1972 and the second floor was closed, according to Helen Person, Chairwoman of the Barrow Preservation Society.
"It was a beautiful place," recalled Martha Blalock, at the Barrow County Historical Society, housed in the old county jail, down the street and within view of the hotel's granite walls at the corner of Broad and Athens Streets.
Winder's city council voted on December 6 to approve a $178,000 demolition bid on the two-story building. Council members said there was no way to justify not tearing it down because of the cost of restoring it, and in the current recession, the lack of development funding available for the task.
The job of bringing the Granite down is liable to be ticklish; extra care is needed to avoid damaging other buildings and city streets before the site can become a "pocket park," part of Winder's streetscape project plan.
The demolition cost is just the latest entry in the city's ledger of Granite Hotel expenses. The Winder Downtown Development Authority (DDA) purchased the hotel in December 2004 with $200,000 provided by the city. City officials spent at least $230,000 to stabilize the building, but time and the elements continued to wear the Granite down.
Developers have not helped. Bids to buy the Granite from the DDA hit financial snags and those snags meant no real renovation efforts. The old hotel is in such poor shape city officials cannot see investing any more money in preservation.
The Granite is not only in the center of Winder, it is in the center of the town's history. The Granite was built in 1899 on the site of the original "Jug Tavern," a double log cabin where travelers were served corn whiskey in brown fired jugs, hence the town's original name, "Jug Tavern." The Granite, with its estimated 28,000 square feet, remains the largest locally quarried granite building in the state. Its granite blocks came from a quarry south of town owned by Winder founder Wiley Bush, whose son-in-law C.M. Ferguson was a granite mason and is credited with building the hotel.
"We're very upset because it's part of history and our ancestors, we just hate to see it torn down," Martha Blalock said. Since the Granite is soon to disappear, she said she plans to create an information pamphlet about it so people will remember it. It will be available at the museum.
"It will have pictures of what the hotel looked like when it was first built and then, sad to say, the way it looks now," she said. "It had a restaurant, the rooms were nice and it was a good place to live. It was a good place to be when you came to visit friends in Winder or to do business in Winder."
That's the way 92-year-old Virginia "Ginny" Barron remembers the Granite. Following her service as an Army nurse in Burma during World War ll, she and her husband Bill stayed at the Granite for six months until they could move into an apartment during the housing shortage days in Winder following the war in 1945.
In those days, the Granite's owner, a Mrs. Couch, served home- cooked meals in the hotel dining room on the first floor three times a day and downtown business people would stop in for lunch. A number of senior residents boarded at the hotel as well as the overnight guests. The second-story rooms were not elaborate, but they were comfortable.
"People there were friendly," Mrs. Barron remembered. "It was just like family in a hometown, hospitable hotel."
After the 1940s, the Granite began the journey to the broken, boarded-up place it is now, falling into gradual disrepair until the final visitor lodged there in 1972 and the second floor was closed, according to Helen Person, Chairwoman of the Barrow Preservation Society.
"We continued to have ground floor retail until 2006," Person said. "The city bought the building in 2005 and they believed the ground floor was not safe anymore so they moved the businesses out of there."
Person is one of the preservation advocates who have opposed the hotel's demolition.
The Society formed last year to oppose the demolition and to look for renovation grants.
"The Fox Theatre (in Atlanta) was saved with six minutes left and the wrecking ball was standing across the street," she recalled. " We still hold out hope that someone could come forward and say 'yes, we'd love to work with your group.'"
Person said it would take a consortium of people with public and private money to put together a package to save the building and rehabilitate it as a hotel with ground floor retail shops.
Person believes the Granite could find a new life as Winder's front door, attracting visitors and local folks back to downtown. If not, "it's going to leave a huge hole," a huge hole where once there was a beautiful place, remembered as a "good place to be."
Person is one of the preservation advocates who have opposed the hotel's demolition.
The Society formed last year to oppose the demolition and to look for renovation grants.
"The Fox Theatre (in Atlanta) was saved with six minutes left and the wrecking ball was standing across the street," she recalled. " We still hold out hope that someone could come forward and say 'yes, we'd love to work with your group.'"
Person said it would take a consortium of people with public and private money to put together a package to save the building and rehabilitate it as a hotel with ground floor retail shops.
Person believes the Granite could find a new life as Winder's front door, attracting visitors and local folks back to downtown. If not, "it's going to leave a huge hole," a huge hole where once there was a beautiful place, remembered as a "good place to be."
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