Page 154 - WDT Winter 2018 japan

This sense of rootedness is enhanced Carlo meets Gone With the Wind.” A de-
by the staff. Of the nearly 2,000 employed scription enhanced by the dancing cou-
here, roughly 14 percent have worked at the ples, who appear at 10:00 each night,
Greenbrier for 25 years or more. Hunter, sashaying down red-carpeted stairs and
whose Scots-Irish ancestors, arrived in the waltzing under the Cupola while gam-
area in the 1700’s. and who “grew up five bling guests sip more complimentary
minutes from here,” has been at the Green- champagne.
brier for 19 years. Historian Conte is a 39-
On our way out we bragged to a ca-
year veteran. “I’ve been here longer than half
sino guard that we’d won $12 at video
of the furniture,” he says. But even Conte’s
poker. He gave us a thumbs up and ex-
number pales next to official greeter, Frank
claimed, “Hey that’s enough to buy a bot-
Modley, who’s worked here 59 years.
tle of water.”
On the other hand, when bazillionaire
The next morning we sampled the
Jim Justice bought the Greenbrier in 2009,
elaborate breakfast buffet in the main
one of his first moves was to turn things
dining room, its wallpaper broken up by
upside down and build what’s now called
dark oil paintings with stern 19th-century
“America’s only private casino.” Opened
faces. Then we browsed the three dozen
in 2010, the casino attracted a red carpet
shops and boutiques in the lower lobby,
crowd that included Jennifer Garner and
most of them owned by The Greenbrier
Ben Affleck, Shaquille O’Neal, Jack Nicklaus
and featuring labels such as Lilly Pulitzer
and Raquel Welch. Justice is now West Vir-
and Ralph Lauren.
ginia’s governor. He held his inaugural ball
at the Greenbrier. His daughter, Jill Justice, an But we didn’t succumb. Instead, we
osteopath, was married in the on-premises headed to the Greenbrier’s West Virginia
chapel her father built for the occasion and Wing.
she is now president of the Greenbrier. Because it was time to visit The Bun-

After dinner in the main dining room -- ker.
jacket and tie required (they have a box of Which means it’s time for us to reveal
ties for the tieless) -- the Greenbrier Casino The Greenbrier’s Cold War secret, code-
Club was our last stop of the day. Built be- named “Project Greek Island.”
low the hotel’s grand entryway, the casino is
In the mid-1950s, with the threat of
only open to guests or members of visiting
nuclear war looming, federal officials
conference groups.
looked around for a safe place to stash
Along with the usual blackjack tables Congressmen and Senators in the case
and slot machines, the casino features a of an attack (they would hide the Presi-
down-scaled Cupola, fancy chandeliers, dent separately).
a gargantuan clamshell fountain and, of
The Greenbrier, 250 miles from
course, floral wallpaper.
Washington, D.C., and accessible by rail
It’s been a characterized as, “Monte and road seemed like a good choice.
Just behind the main hotel building, a plaque
commemorates the original “hostelery,” built
in 1858 and nicknamed “The Old White.”

154 WDT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018