The Greenbrier, Resort hotel in Greenbrier County, US.
The Greenbrier is a resort hotel in the Allegheny Mountains near White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Its neoclassical main building, designed by Frederick Julius Sterner and opened on September 25, 1913, has a central portico with six white columns beneath a triangular pediment, flanked by long wings of rectangular windows. The 1931 north wing crosses the 1913 wing in a T shape.
During World War II, the property served as Ashford General Hospital treating wounded soldiers before reopening as a resort in the postwar years. In the 1960s, a secret bunker was built beneath the West Virginia Wing as a Cold War shelter for Congress.
The resort is named after Greenbrier County, not a river; the county took its name from the Greenbrier River. Dorothy Draper's 1948 renovation used 45,000 meters of fabric, 15,000 rolls of wallpaper and 40,000 gallons of paint, earning her a $4.2 million fee, then the highest ever paid to a designer.
Visitors arriving at the resort find the main building houses various dining rooms and lounges, while outdoor grounds offer gardens and recreation facilities. Check-in takes place in the central lobby, from which guest areas and public rooms are easily accessible.
Built between 1958 and 1961 at a cost of about $10 million, the bunker lies 6 to 18 metres below the hotel and runs some 220 metres, covering 3,200 square metres with 153 rooms. It held 150,000 litres of diesel, 270,000 litres of drinking water, a 400-seat cafeteria, an operating theatre and a crematorium.
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