Family moves to Middle Georgia to reopen historic Perry hotel

PERRY -- The New Perry Hotel is reopening, and it’s a family affair.

“We make a great team,” said Heather Johnson. “(Brother) Jeremy is good at running the hotel. I’m good with running the kitchen. Mom is good at running people in general.”

Mother Patty Johnson has been the organizer of the family’s move to Perry as well as preparations to reopen the historic hotel.

As the Johnson team continues with renovations and health inspections, they have begun accepting reservations for rooms and the banquet area. They expect to hold a grand opening no later than Oct. 1.

Moving to Perry

The New Perry Hotel, including a gourmet restaurant and tavern, is a town staple that has lured tourists for the past nine decades. Kim Mullins, whose family purchased the building with expectations to resell it, closed the doors in December after three years with no buyers.

Downtown merchants were scared of slowed tourism. Residents were sad to see an icon go. And, Perry city officials, who laid off six employees this year, couldn’t help save the hotel.

Almost 500 miles away in Rocky Mount, N.C., Patty Johnson, 48, read a Telegraph article about Mullins’ dilemma.

“My husband and I have always loved antiques and old buildings, and we’d always wanted to open a little bed and breakfast,” Patty Johnson said Friday.

At the time, Patty Johnson was a product reviewer for a pharmaceutical company. Her husband, Kevin Johnson, was a retired Marine working as a bank manager. Daughter Heather Johnson, 23, had a nutrition and food sciences degree and worked at a local hotel. And, son Jeremy Johnson, 19, was a front desk manager at the hotel where his sister worked.

After a family decision to take on the New Perry Hotel together, they quickly began their journey to Georgia. By Memorial Day, they had visited Perry and purchased the hotel.

It wouldn’t be their first move. Like many military families, the Johnsons can recite a long list of military bases they lived on or around. This move, though, is by choice and likely permanent.

“We expect to be here 30 years from now, with them running it,” said Patty Johnson on Friday, waving toward her children.

Returning to the past

The Johnsons may have arrived in Perry only three weeks ago, but they have caught up on the New Perry Hotel history. They plan to respect its lineage, especially since it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, Patty Johnson said.

“People have stopped by from as far west as Kentucky and as far east as New York, and they all have these fond memories,” said Stephanie Zurinski, Jeremy Johnson’s long-time girlfriend who has made the transition with the family. “We want to pay tribute to that.”

The family said the rooms will remain as eclectic as always, with some that are singles and others that connect with a bathroom.

“Every room has it’s own flavor and feel,” Patty Johnson said.

Real Turf Solutions, of Gray, is cleaning up the overgrown landscape to look similar to photos of the hotel when it first opened. Patty Johnson said most of the work for the house is being contracted to Middle Georgia businesses.

“A lot of years have passed since those pictures. A lot has grown,” said Scott Griffin, owner of Real Turf Solutions. “It’s going to be a challenge for us to get it back looking like that. But, we’re going to do it.”

The restaurant’s menu, which many Middle Georgia residents gush about, will remain Southern influenced, with the standard chicken fried steak, collard greens and pot roast.

However, Heather Johnson, who will manage the restaurant, said she is using her nutrition background to add health-conscious foods, especially items that are friendly to diabetics and people with heart conditions.

“You don’t have to feel bad for coming to eat every time you come,” Heather Johnson said. “We’re pretty good at making (food) taste good and still be healthy.”

In addition, she is opening a coffee bar with homemade deserts, featuring her deceivingly healthy pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

The family also has decided to tweak the rooms in the motel addition behind the hotel, but with a tribute to the height of the New Perry Hotel’s history.

“We want to make them theme rooms from the ’50s,” Patty Johnson said, listing Elvis Presley, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe as room inspirations.

Opening in stages

The family has taken up residence on the third floor. Along with Patty’s visiting parents, John and Helen McDuffie, of Gray, the Johnsons have spent the last three weeks scrubbing down walls, kitchen supplies and floors, rearranging furniture and organizing larger projects.

The best part, they said, has been working together.

“Every meal is sitting down at the dining room table. That’s something we haven’t been able to do in a long time,” Patty Johnson said, with Heather Johnson adding the family also uses the time to give kudos on the sometimes daunting tasks.

Patty Johnson said the hotel will reopen in stages over the next couple of months. The coffee bar will open within the next month or so, she said. When the kitchen has been thoroughly inspected, it will follow. Then, The Tavery will open.

And, finally, the opening of the hotel and motel will make it official.

“The town of Perry has been very good to us,” Patty Johnson said. “They all seem to want the New Perry Hotel to be here.”

But the family has already had their first guests, so to speak. The Tikis, a Birmingham Record Collectors Hall of Fame band, begged to stay at the hotel while in Perry last week. They put on a mini-concert just outside the hotel, drawing residents for a listen, Patty Johnson said.

“I’ll never forget my first guests,” Patty Johnson said. “Hopefully, there will be plenty more.”

To contact writer Christina M. Wright, call 256-9685.

This story was originally published August 25, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Family moves to Middle Georgia to reopen historic Perry hotel."