Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 14, 1994 TAG: 9405160138
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 1,600-acre Natural Bridge of Virginia Inc. complex, which includes Natural Bridge Hotel, is scheduled to be auctioned today in a lender's foreclosure sale.
The property's owners say they doubt the auction will be held, however. They hope to restructure a $4.9 million loan on the property before it's put up for bids on the steps of the Rockbridge County Courthouse in Lexington.
The "problem is with the hotel loan market and not the operation and services of the Natural Bridge Hotel," said James C. Hoyt, vice president of operations for Coakley and Williams Hotel Management Firm, the Greenbelt, Md., company that runs the hotel. "This hotel will stay open."
He said the hotel has events booked into next year and that its operation is not affected by the financial problems.
The loan to the group that bought the property for $6.5 million from a private stock company in 1988 came due in full about two years ago. The loan is held by Lennar Financial Associates of Miami, which bought it from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Lennar, Florida's largest home builder, specializes in buying loans from failed banks. The company also holds some of the loans involved in the Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy of Krisch Realty Associates in Roanoke.
Gordon F. Saunders, a Lexington attorney who represents Lennar in the hotel foreclosure, said the Natural Bridge company, headed by Angelo A. Puglisi as president, owes $300,000 in interest in addition to the loan balance.
Lennar bought the notes, with an original face value of $6 million, in December, said his attorney, David Brody of Washington, D.C. FDIC got it in the takeover of Madison National Bank and National Bank of Washington, Brody said.
Puglisi is a Washington-area real estate investor.
If the sale takes place, the winning bidder will be the 14th owner of the 215-foot-tall limestone arch, carved by the waters of Cedar Creek, since Thomas Jefferson acquired it in a land grant from the British crown in 1774, said Carl Tolley, Natural Bridge's attractions manager.
Included with the bridge are the 120-room hotel, the 60-room Stonewall Inn, a gift shop and restaurant, a wax museum and limestone caverns 347 feet underground.
Staff writer Sandra Brown Kelly contributed to this story.
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