Carolina Hotel [1]
Carolina Hotel
In June 1895 James W. Tufts, a successful Boston manufacturer, came to North Carolina seeking a healthy and mild [3]climate. After purchasing 5,890 acres for approximately $1.00 per acre in the Sandhills area of Moore County [4], Tufts hired Frederick Law Olmsted [5], the distinguished landscape artist who designed Central Park in New York City and the grounds of Biltmore House [6], to draw up plans for a village named Pinehurst. Tufts put in cottages, a power plant, a post office, a department store, and the 250-room Carolina Hotel [7]. The huge structure, the largest frame hotel in the state, contained 49 suites with bath and a music room for 400 guests, which featured daily concerts by the hotel orchestra. The hotel opened on 1 Jan. 1901 and boasted every modern comfort and convenience, including electric lights, elevators, and telephones in each room. Tufts also built a trolley line from the Seaboard Railway station [8] in nearby Southern Pines to transport passengers to the Carolina Hotel.
In 1898 Tufts hired golf architect Donald J. Ross [9] to build a nine-hole golf course. By 1919 Ross had designed four courses, including the famed Pinehurst Number 2 course [10], and golf became the essential pastime for Pinehurst's tourists. The hotel also provided tennis courts, horseback riding, polo, croquet, and trap shooting. Sharpshooter Annie Oakley [11] ran the Pinehurst Gun Club for ten years. Guests of the Carolina Hotel included Warren G. Harding [12], J. Pierpont Morgan [13], Amelia Earhart [14], John D. Rockefeller Sr. [15], Theodore Roosevelt [16], John Philip Sousa [17], and Will Rogers [18]. From 1895 until 1920, James Tufts ran Pinehurst and the hotel as a sole proprietorship. In 1920 a charter for Pinehurst, Inc., was obtained from the state. By 1980 Pinehurst was a municipality, no longer a "company town."
In 1980 Malcolm McLean [19] of Diamondhead Corporation purchased Pinehurst, Inc. McLean built a new front entrance and thoroughly refurbished and repaired the hotel, now known as the Pinehurst Hotel [20]. Diamondhead defaulted on bank loans in 1982, and the Club Corporation of America [21] bought the hotel, golf courses, and clubhouse two years later. Restored to its former splendor, the Pinehurst Resort and Country Club [20]was in the early 2000s a AAA Four-Diamond Resort, with eight golf courses, a tennis complex, and other amenities.
References:
Raymond North, The Pinehurst Story: June 1895-June 1984 (1985).
Lee Pace, "Getting Back on Course," Business North Carolina (August 1988).
Manly Wade Wellman, The County of Moore (1962).
Image Credit:
Carolina Hotel, built 1901. Image courtesy of Flickr user Mike Renlund, 2008. Available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/deltamike/2478699476/ [3] (accessed August 31, 2012)
1 January 2006 | Pleasants, Julian M.