Hotel Hell

We hear Fayetteville’s historic old Mountain Inn has gone to the dogs. A source in the Federal Building, across Mountain Street from the hotel, said a variety of “shady characters” have been seen driving up to the fifth floor roof of the seven-story “vacant” hotel, climbing the stairs and entering the building through a door on the seventh floor. Some of them “have been carrying bags with them.”

From what we hear, the walls are splattered with paint from a paintball gun and several windows have been broken. One of the windows was apparently shot out with a pellet gun (which isn’t a good idea, particularly if someone is shooting toward the Federal Building). Also, mattresses and furniture have been thrown into the swimming pool on the fifth floor roof.

The building was vacant from 1960-1980, then served as a hotel again until 1994. From that year until 1998, it was owned and occupied by Maharishi Vedic University of North Carolina, which used it as a place to hold classes. The building currently has no electricity, and the plumbing is off.

The planned $12 million renovation to convert the Mountain Inn to be a Crowne Plaza Hotel has been on hold since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The hotel has 108 rooms and a total of 60,000 SF.

In the meantime, maybe Stella Moga of Westlake, Ohio, who bought the Mountain Inn for $975,000 in 2000, should at least lock the doors.