The Brand New Crown Hotel

The brand new Crown Hotel as featured in its brochure

The Crown Hotel opened for business Tuesday, January 5, 1982.  It proudly featured 34 individually decorated guest rooms complete with brass beds, antique styled furnishings and private baths.  Renovations also included the addition of a sweeping, suspended spiral staircase in the lobby, a swimming pool and a guest elevator.

The Crown's lobby and guest reception

One of 34 individually decorated guest rooms

The new swimming pool

Two new dining outlets; the upscale Churchill's restaurant and an English pub called The Fox & The Hound Tavern required the addition of a state of the art commercial kitchen.  

The Fox & Hound Pub

China designed specifically for the Crown Hotel

For weddings and community events, two banquet rooms known as The Windsor andThe Buckingham could accomodate up to 25 & 80 guests respectively. 

A server prepares for a banquet
 in the Buckingham Room.

Churchill's Chef, Dennis Malone
and Maitre d', Salvatore Vaccarino

Reproductions of the renowned Crown Jewels were displayed in the hotel lobby.  

And finally, to complete the look, Epicure purchased a red, 1909 double-decker bus at a London auction, shipped it across the Atlantic and parked it just outside the hotel's entrance. 

The Crown Hotel opened with an original management team of four:

General Manager

Jade Rivers

Assistant Manager

Ian Young

Chef

Dennis Malone

Maitre D'

Salvatore Vaccarrino

Assistant Manager, Ian Young

A few months later, staff additions included:

Sous Chef

Mike Murray

Assistant Sous Chef

Nigel Murdoch

A year after the opening, a personal friend of the Brierly family joined the management team:

Deputy Manager
Philip Leckenby

Deputy Manager, Philip Leckenby

And around 1983, Jade Rivers assumed the position of Managing Director and Ian Young was promoted to General Manager.

Management worked hard to promote the hotel, placing ads in multiple publications around the country.

Below are the hotel's room rates which remained fairly consistent for the 20 plus years the Crown Hotel was in business.  Of course, these rates did not include the 6% sales and 2% tourist tax travelers would incur.

The Crown Hotel
Tariff Schedule

Small Single Room.....$37.50 per night

Single Room...............$55.00 per night

Double Room..............$65.00 per night

Suite (two rooms)........$110.00 per night

A crowning achievement; The Crown Hotel in 1982, shortly after the $2 million renovation.  And here's a fun fact, the two people walking together in this photo postcard are Assistant Manager, Ian Young and Front Desk Clerk, Teri Adkisson. Teri would become the hotel's longest continuously employed staff member, at twenty years and one week.

Learn more about the creation of the Crown Hotel.  Episode two of "Hotel Stories" tracks the building's gradual decline as the Colonial Hotel and its tranformation into the Crown Hotel.