Coolfont Resort

The Coolfont Resort was a resort hotel in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia that operated from 1965 to 2006.

In 1961, Sam Ashelman (1913-2010), a Washington, D.C. businessman who had been influential in the consumer cooperative movement, bought the property, consisting of about 1,200 acres including a landmark 1913 house built by author John Herbert Quick and called Coolfont in reference to nearby springs.[1] In 1965, Ashelman, together with his wife Martha and Rosalyn and Alden Capen, established the hotel.[2][3] The Ashelmans added numerous cabins, private homes, a conference center, and other buildings on the grounds.[4] It became a West Virginia landmark visited by numerous famous guests, and noted as a retreat for Washington politicians who used the facility for both recreation and for policy discussions.[5] Among the hotel's best known regular guests were Al and Tipper Gore, who famously got lost in the woods while hiking at Coolfont a few days after Al Gore was elected Vice President of the United States in the 1992 election.[6]

By 2003, Ashelman's son Randall was in charge of operations, while Sam Ashelman remained active and continued the activities of the non-profit Coolfont Foundation for the Arts, which brought musicians, writers, and others to the resort.[7] In 2005 the Coolfont was sold for a reported $7.8 million to the Carl M. Freeman Companies, a real estate developer with aspirations to upgrade the resort and create a community of homes.[8][9] However, company CEO Joshua Freeman was killed in a helicopter crash the following year,[10] and the resort lay dormant and in disrepair.

In 2014 the company removed a substantial amount of timber from the property.[11] The property was listed for sale and in 2016 was put up for auction. The entire remaining resort property, amounting to 988 acres, was sold in nine parcels for a total of $2.673 million.[12]

As of 2019 a set date for the resort to reopen is set for early May. New owners state it will be a new resort and restaurant.

The updated resort building pre-opening

[13]

Main room under construction

References
  1. "Coolfont Manor House, near Berkeley Springs in Morgan County, West Virginia", Library of Congress (accessed 2017-02-04).
  2. "Samuel F. Ashelman Jr., Resort Founder", The Washington Post, August 25, 2010.
  3. "Samuel F. Ashelman Jr., 97" Archived 2017-02-05 at the Wayback Machine, The Herald-Mail, August 13, 2010.
  4. Iris Krasnow, "Coolfont: A slice of heaven in West Virginia", United Press International, December 14, 1987.
  5. Roger Piantadosi,"Springs Fever: A weekend retreat to West Virginia", The Washington Post, May 11, 1994  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  6. "Outdoor Gores get lost in woods", Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 10, 1992.
  7. Marina Henricks, "World peace and quiet: Resort owner retreats (a bit) from international affairs", Sunday Gazette-Mail, March 2, 2003  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  8. Peter Heerwagen, "New Coolfont Owner Makes Changes", Quad-State Business Journal, February 1, 2006  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  9. Juliet A. Terry, "Coolfont to Get New Life as Vacation Home Destination", State Journal, August 17, 2007  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  10. Miranda Spivak, "Developer Killed in Crash Recalled for Sense of Fun", The Washington Post, December 16, 2006.
  11. Kate Shunney, "Timbering underway on former Coolfont Property", Morgan Messenger, October 8, 2014.
  12. "Former Coolfont resort sold at auction", Martinsburg Journal, June 22, 2016.
  13. http://nationofdecay.wixsite.com/nationofdecay/post/coolfont-resort Nation Decay Blog
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