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Get The Greenbrier Lover In Your Life Some Greenbrier Jewelry This Holiday Season

Where: 300 West Main Street [map], White Sulphur Springs, WV, United States, 24986

Last week when we were hunting down some info on the Dorothy Draper School of Decorating at the historic Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, we came across this photo on the hotel's Facebook page--a sterling silver charm replica of the iconic Springhouse gazebo. Oh great, a hotel charm, just what we wanted. Thaaaaaaanks.

The $75 charm (!) is just one of many knick knacky items that you can pick up from the hotel's Crepe Myrtle Bags & Beads store if you're doing some Christmas shopping during your stay. Actually, the charm is just one of many logoed items you can get from the hotel's collection of stores from tennis gear to golf clothes, handmade truffles, toys, and uh, gun stuff from the Gun Club Shop.

While being on site to pick up the items in person might be easier, you can always phone in a gift order too. Not sure about that gun stuff though.

Fun Fact: We have pictures of us posing near the Springhouse from 1991 wearing a floral printed dress from Express and white flats. Eeek!

Design Thursdays / Dorothy Draper / Historic Hotels / Hotel Design / Hotel Designers / Hotel Classes / → All Tags

The Greenbrier to Offer Hotel Dororthy Draper Decorating Classes Next Year

Where: 300 West Main Street [map], White Sulphur Springs, WV, United States, 24986

Welcome to our newest new feature, Design Thursdays! Thursdays are now our day to focus on hotel design through photo tours, video walk-throughs and interviews with hotel designers. Got a cool hotel design story we should know about? Let us know.

Hey there aspiring interior designers! Eager to get into the world of interior design or decorating but watching reruns of "Top Design" and "Million Dollar Designers" isn't cutting it? Then consider heading to the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virgina for their new one-week interior decorating courses named after the hotel's legendary decorator, Dorothy Draper.

The Dorothy Draper School of Decorating will offer limited enrollment for the weeks of February 26, March 25, April 29 and June 10. The classes will be specially created by Carleton Varney, the curator of The Greenbrier who was also Dorothy Draper's protege and who is current president of Dorothy Draper and company. Here's a bit on the class syllabus:

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The Greenbrier is Back With a New Casino Club and Celebs

Where: 300 West Main Street [map], White Sulphur Springs, WV, United States, 24986

Just a few years ago, the sprawling Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia was on the brink of closing. While it looked like Marriott would come in and take over the resort, in the end, West Virginia's multi-millionaire Jim Justice swooped in and bought the property for just $20 million. And it looks like he found a way to make the property exciting again while at the same time, bring in some crazy revenue--he built a casino.

The Casino Club opened on Friday with loads of celebs in attendance. The Washington Post spied the following at the grand opening: Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck, Jessica Simpson, Brooke Shields, Lionel Richie, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Jane Seymour, Debbie Reynolds, Raquel Welch, Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus. J-Simp even got a special 30th birthday cake presented to her by Justice.

The Casino Club will definitely bring some glamour back into the resort which used to rely on its underground congressional bunker to draw in guests. The casino, also located underground, spans 102,000-sq.ft. with table games from blackjack to Texas Hold 'Em, slots, baccarat, roulette with an Asian restaurant and a bar on site along with a retail "avenue" with high-end shops like Brioni, Badgley Mishka and jeweler Roberto Coin.

So right now, you're probably thinking you'll wanna pop in for a quick round of poker on your next trip to West Virginai. Hold up, not so fast.

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Greenbrier Saves Some Green by Shedding Employees

Where: 300 W. Main Street [map], White Sulphur Springs, WV, United States, 24986

What do the Borgata, the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas and West Virginia's Greenbrier hotel all have in common?

Massive layoffs!

The Greenbrier hotel, on the list of historic hotels in America, is the latest hotel to lay off employees—and by far the largest amount so far: 650 of 1,350 people, or slightly less than half of its staff. (Atlantis cut about 10 percent of its staff, or 800 employees; while the Borgata let go 400 of its roughly 7,000 staffers.)

Reuters explains:

Greenbrier said in the statement that historically, business improves in the late spring and summer, and that it anticipated that some of the furloughed employees could return at that time. The resort said the furloughs announced on Friday [January 9] were significantly greater than those associated with seasonal declines. Greenbrier Hotel has existed since 1778.

It just so happens that during the Cold War, the U.S. government built a 112,000-square-foot bunker beneath a wing of the hotel, meant for as many as 2,500 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate and their families to hide out in the event of a nuclear attack.

Sounds to us like those folks may need to hunker down there if different reasons if they don't get this economic mess sorted out soon.

[Photo: Vicky TGAW]