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The Westin Poinsett, Greenville

Greenville, South Carolina, United States · Westin · Accessible Luxury

The Westin Poinsett, Greenville: The Westin Poinsett, Greenville | Downtown Hotel with Event SpaceThe Westin Poinsett, Greenville: The Westin Poinsett Historic Hotel in Greenville, South Carolina | Historic Hotels of AmericaThe Westin Poinsett, Greenville: Bedroom

Built after 1,700 Greenville residents bought $100 shares to fund it, the 1925 Poinsett Hotel was South Carolina's first skyscraper, a 12-story Beaux-Arts tower by New York architect William Lee Stoddart that the city's own citizens financed room by room. General manager J. Mason Alexander built its reputation as "Carolina's Finest" through the 1930s, hosting Amelia Earhart and Liberace, before it closed in 1987. Restored for $20 million, it reopened as the Westin Poinsett on October 22, 2000, the exact 75th anniversary of its original 1925 debut.

About The Westin Poinsett, Greenville

History

The block on South Main Street in Greenville, South Carolina, had been in the hospitality business for a hundred years before the Poinsett Hotel was built. The Mansion House Hotel operated on the site from 1824 until it was razed in 1924, serving travelers for a full century on what was already one of Greenville's most prominent commercial addresses. The decision to replace it with something grander was driven in large part by the biennial Southern Textile Exhibit, a major industry gathering that brought buyers, manufacturers, and business travelers to Greenville from across the country and exposed the city's shortage of quality accommodations.

Local textile magnate John T. Woodside led a group of businessmen who sold $100 shares to 1,700 Greenville residents to capitalize the project, raising enough to commission New York architect William Lee Stoddart — who had just completed the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston and the Hotel Savannah in Georgia — to design the city's first skyscraper. Stoddart delivered a 12-story Beaux-Arts tower on an L-shaped plan: a four-story base punctuated by tall arched windows spanning the second and third levels, a shaft of seven stories, and a capital floor with an ornate cornice and balustraded parapet. The facade incorporated terra cotta festoons, modillion blocks, and rich classical detailing that placed the building unmistakably in the tradition of American commercial architecture at its most confident. The J. E. Sirrine Company of Greenville served as contractor, and the $1.5 million project was completed in twelve months. The Poinsett Hotel opened in June 1925, named for Joel R. Poinsett — the South Carolina statesman who served as Secretary of War under President Martin Van Buren, the first U.S. Minister to Mexico, and the man who introduced the poinsettia plant to the United States.

The hotel's first years were financially troubled. It lost $30,000 in its opening year, and the onset of the Great Depression compounded its difficulties through the early 1930s. The turnaround came in 1930 with the appointment of J. Mason Alexander as general manager, a hotelier of exacting standards who operated according to what he called the Four C's — cleanliness, cooking, competence, and courtesy — and added a fifth of his own: he accepted only crisp, fresh currency in his establishment, on the theory that a grand hotel should handle clean money. By 1940, Alexander's stewardship had earned the Poinsett the reputation of "Carolina's Finest," and the hotel added 60 guest rooms in 1941. Notable guests during these decades included Amelia Earhart, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Bobby Kennedy, and Liberace.

The rise of automobile culture and highway motels in the 1950s eroded the hotel's business, as it did with grand city-center hotels across America. The Poinsett was sold to the Jack Tarr Hotel chain in 1959 and changed hands several more times before closing entirely in 1987. It sat vacant for over a decade, deteriorating and vandalized, and was placed on South Carolina's list of most endangered historic buildings before developers Steve Dopp and Greg Lenox — who had already successfully restored the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston — purchased the property in November 1997 and acquired a Westin franchise.

The restoration cost approximately $20 million and took three years. Workers preserved the original Beaux-Arts plasterwork, marble finishes, and terrazzo details while upgrading every mechanical system in the building. The Westin Poinsett officially reopened on October 22, 2000 — the 75th anniversary of its original opening — with a reception in the restored Gold Ballroom. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982, a member of Historic Hotels of America since 2002, and holder of AAA Four Diamond recognition, the Westin Poinsett today anchors the southern end of downtown Greenville's revitalized Main Street, its 12-story Beaux-Arts silhouette unchanged from the day William Lee Stoddart declared it the finest hostelry in the South.

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