Perry landmark in limbo

PERRY -- Per their usual itinerary for the trip from Florida to Tennessee during the past 45 years or so, Darwin and Barbara Milligan planned to spend a relaxing Thursday night at the New Perry Hotel, Restaurant and Tavery.

“The last time we were here, it looked like it was on its way out,” said Barbara Milligan, 80. “But we were hoping it wasn’t.”

The Milligans are the type of tourists Perry business owners fear will avoid the city since the hotel closed in late December. The merchants are distributing a petition to ask the city to help financially maintain the historic building, but officials say no funds are available.

“It’s a Perry icon,” said Krista Harris, president of the Downtown Merchants Association. “It is downtown Perry.”

Building an icon

Since the 1920s, the hotel has been a destination for weddings, political events and tourists. Now, the peeling apple and cream-colored building stands empty, except for the occasional local group meeting.

The New Perry Hotel replaced the old Perry Hotel in the early 1920s when a fire destroyed the former building. No one was sure Thursday who ran the hotel until 1944, when the Yates family took over.

But, as told by current owner Kim Mullins, the Yateses created a dynamic place for visitors and local residents.

“Nannette Yates, she had the knack of keeping the restaurant going, and she was good at it,” Mullins said. “And, he (Joe) was good at the hotel part of it.”

The quaint, historic structure has an open sunroom, restaurant and lavish lobby on the first floor. An additional sunroom sits midway between the first and second floors. The third floor contains 27 rooms, with varying layouts and furnishings.

“No two rooms are the same,” Mullins said Thursday, including the 27 rooms in the addition built behind the hotel.

The eclectic rooms and outside patios were part of the draw for the Milligans, who have stayed in the hotel almost every year since 1964. They sat at a dusty, wrought-iron patio table Thursday afternoon, reminiscing about their stays in Perry.

“It was just peaceful,” Barbara Milligan said. “The quality of the food was great. People came from miles around. The rooms were beautiful.”

After running the hotel and restaurant for more than 50 years, the Yates family sold the hotel to a group of about 20 investors in 2001. In 2004, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

But, Mullins said, the hotel business proved difficult to sustain. So Mullins and his family bought the business from the investors, expecting to keep it for one or two years. That was more than three years ago.

“We bought it, hoping we could find the right people to keep it for the community,” he said. “But, with the economy, it’s not happening.”

In December, the Mullins family closed the hotel. Since then, they have hosted a few group events, mostly the regular Rotary Club meetings.

The future

Mullins said his family is looking for the “right person” to take over the hotel.

“It’s never going to be a hotel where the people are going to come off of the interstate,” Mullins said. “It’s really great for business meetings and weddings. It should be run more as a bed and breakfast.”

Mullins said he is willing to sell the building to the right person for $500,000, and would even consider financing part of the price. But the building needs some care, he said -- new paint for the chipped green and cream outside, maybe new wallpaper and a few other things.

Meanwhile, Perry City Manager Lee Gilmour said Thursday that a hotel just isn’t as viable as it was before Interstate 75 and the newer hotels near it were constructed.

“The extensive costs that would be required to bring the facility current for today’s travelers is a lot,” Gilmour said, noting the building doesn’t have an elevator or handicap amenities.

Though the downtown merchants are circulating a petition to ask city officials to initiate a revenue bond for the hotel, Gilmour said the city does not have funds. In fact, he said he was balancing the budget Thursday, which is currently $465,000 in the red. He said City Council is open to viable plans for the building, but the plan would need to be economically reasonable and amenable to neighbors.

Downtown merchants would rather the hotel remain a hotel, Harris said. Tourists come to the area more often because of the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter, but the hotel would draw tourists away from the interstate and into downtown Perry, she said.

“If we move the Chamber of Commerce center or the visitor’s center there, it’ll always be there for us, who are from Perry,” she said. “But I just don’t know if it’ll have a meaning for tourists.”

The Milligans said they would prefer the hotel be fixed up the next time they make the trip from Lakeland, Fla., to Murfreesboro, Tenn. This weekend, they will instead stay in Macon with their granddaughter.

“They’re our new New Perry Hotel,” Barbara Milligan said, dusting off her pants and walking away.

This story was originally published May 20, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Perry landmark in limbo."