Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 8, 1993 TAG: 9312080113
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Cascades Inn, adjacent to one of the resort's three championship golf courses, will be shut for the upcoming season as an experiment, said Gary Rosenberg, president of The Homestead.
Rosenberg said The Cascades was under study even before Club Resorts Inc. of Dallas purchased the Bath County resort. He said the decision to close it was "purely part of a larger picture of studying each operating entity of The Homestead."
"We have not made a long-term or permanent decision," he said.
He said previous guests of The Cascades were interviewed prior to the closing and most "were agreeable to moving to the main hotel for a season. There were some folks who really had some concern," he said. "That concern is why we did not make a long-term, permanent decision."
The inn was popular with golf groups, he said.
Rosenberg said 32 people were employed at The Cascades, and only a couple of them have found other jobs with the resort, he said.
He also said there have been other layoffs. "We've had the normal winter layoffs, and we have gone a bit deeper," he said.
Peak employment at the resort is more than 1,000; it now has 700 to 750 workers, he said.
Rosenberg has been president since October when the privately owned Club Resorts bought the property and said it would spend $12.5 million in the next two years to upgrade the 100-year-old resort.
Immediate projects include a new driving range and golf school building at the main golf course adjacent to the main hotel. What has been known as the casino building on that course will be renovated into a sports shop and grill, Rosenberg said.
He said work on the course should begin within 45 days.
He said guests still will be shuttled from the hotel to the Cascades course, but the main golf activity will be near the hotel when the season begins in the spring.
Other projects include renovating the hotel spa, upgrading 100 guest rooms and buying new carpeting and draperies for the public areas of the hotel.
He said money also has been spent on snow-making equipment, but the weather has been too warm for skiing.
The Homestead ice-skating rink opened Thanksgiving weekend, he said.
Rosenberg came to the Hot Springs facility from Pinehurst, N.C., where Club Resorts also owns the Pinehurst Resort.
He said Christmas decorations went up at the hotel before Thanksgiving and that the hotel is "close to sold out" through New Year's Day.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.