Glory Days Again

Restored Chamberlin Hotel Is Magnificent 

By Craig Shapiro, The Virginian-Pilot

The furniture restorer was 15 when she was kissed for the first time. She and her date were on the rooftop. The developer met her best friend 40 years ago at the indoor pool.

Ask people who’ve lived around here a while and they probably have a story about the Chamberlin Hotel.

None, though, is likely to top Harriette Eubank.

She remembers when her brother, a plumber, was on the crew that built the Chamberlin in 1928. Later, when he worked as a soda jerk at the poolside fountain, his little sister spent many an afternoon with a bowl of ice cream.

“I felt so grown up,” Eubank recalls.

Her prom was held in the rooftop garden; so were college dances. When her late husband was called into the Army, they went to the officers’ club at the hotel. Her daughter held her bridesmaids luncheon there. Her husband’s retirement party was held there, too.

Eubank, 88 and a lifelong resident of Hampton, also remembers when her mother, after a death in the family, announced that she was going to the Chamberlin for two weeks. She stayed 15 years.

Eubank can still see her holding court in the lobby.

“The Chamberlin was the only nice hotel around,” Eubank said. “All of the social activities and civic club meetings were held there. Mother sat in her wingback chair, and everybody would stop by and speak to her on their way to their meetings.”

She’s not committing to a comfy chair when the former hotel, now in the homestretch of a two-year, $54 million renovation, reopens as luxury apartments for seniors. But Eubank, who has leased a fifth-floor suite with a view of Fort Wool in Hampton and Norfolk – just as her mother had – said the decision to leave her home of 50 years wasn’t difficult.

“It was not a tough decision because Mother had lived there for so long,” she said. “I knew the Chamberlin like the back of my hand. I wanted to have a place that had the same view. I’ve always lived on the water and couldn’t figure a way to take it with me. They made a beautiful job of it.”

Wendy Drucker and Sue Moniak   enjoy stories like that. Drucker’s real estate company, Newport News-based Drucker & Falk, LLC, is overseeing the renovation and will manage The Chamberlin when it reopens, set for June. Moniak is the executive director.

 “The location sets it apart – on Hampton Roads overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. It’s unique,” Drucker said. “The historic renovation adds a sense of class and old-worldliness that you just don’t get with new construction. No one builds 22-foot ceilings. It’s just not in the cards anymore.”

There’s little question that it will seem like old times when The Chamberlin reopens.

The renovation has spared no detail. The terrazzo floors, crown molding and palladium windows, the lobby chandeliers and mailbox – even the original Steinway piano – are getting makeovers. The tile for the indoor pool – one of the region’s first when it opened in 1929, just days before the stock market crashed – is being re-created, though Eubank will notice one change: The pool is no longer saltwater. The plumbing has been replaced throughout the entire building. Same for the heating and wiring.

In the lobby will be what Moniak calls four “conversation areas” with big ottomans and tables for bridge. Another area will be outfitted for computers. Meals will be served in the Chesapeake Dining Room, coffee in the Channel Bistro. Residents can have drinks in the Officer’s Club or out on the veranda. A rooftop solarium promises lots of wicker and unrivaled views of Hampton Roads, the Bay and the orderly homes that make up Generals Row on Fort Monroe.

Outside, the seawall is getting a $23 million face-lift, providing residents with walking trails.

The Chamberlin also will offer wellness programs through a partnership with Sentara Healthcare. A wellness coordinator will develop classes and familiarize residents with the state-of-the-art exercise equipment in the Hygeia Health Club. Programs and lectures will emphasize preventative health care and health maintenance.

“That was one of the things we felt very strongly about, creating a retirement club atmosphere,” said Moniak, a registered nurse who was executive director for 19 years at Chambrel at Williamsburg, a senior independent and assisted-living facility.

It’s all in keeping with a theme she and Drucker repeat often during a tour of The Chamberlin – that residents won’t be living just in their apartments  but in the entire building.

Life away from the communal areas is all about options, too.

“I like a house where you don’t know where all the bedrooms are,” Moniak said. “We asked ourselves, 'What can we do to make each suite special?’”

A tour shows that the possibilities are tantalizingly endless.

The 133 suites, spread among nine floors, are named for the dignitaries who stayed at the hotels (the Chamberlin wasn’t the first on the site; see accompanying story) or visited Fort Monroe – the first-floor Harding Hygeia; the second-floor Lincoln Historic; the top floor Jackson Old Point Comfort; and the Eisenhower, Tyler and Roosevelt suites, the original hotel rooms, on floors three through eight. Monthly rents start at $2,900.

Suites range in size from just under 600 square feet to nearly 1,500 and, with 53 floor plans available, offer loads of choices; for instance, one or two bedrooms, a full or partial dining room, built-in bookshelves, hardwood floors, colonnades.

Granite, though, is de rigueur in the gourmet kitchens.

“We ask potential residents how they want to live,” Drucker said, adding that there are no plans to convert to condominiums later.

One reason is that the money to renovate The Chamberlin, which joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, was raised through a state and federal historic tax credit program that stipulates that the property remain rental for five years. Residents also must be at least 62.

“But keeping it as a rental community gives our residents flexibility,” Drucker said. “They might move in at a younger age and then, three or four years later, decide to move in with their children. They can’t be locked into a high upfront fee. They might move into a two-bedroom apartment, then lose their spouse or significant other and want to move into a one-bedroom.”

So far, eight deposits have been made since marketing began in mid-February. Drucker is shooting for an average of seven a month.

She likes to point out that those clients who’ve already signed show a lot of guts. They’re leaving homes they’ve lived in for 30 or 40 years to move into apartments they haven’t seen.

They aren’t the only ones who’ve taken a leap of faith. Drucker took one when she toured the Chamberlin a few years ago. The hotel had fallen on hard times after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Heightened security at Fort Monroe led to a drastic decline in business, and the hotel had gone unused after the former owners filed for bankruptcy in 2003.

“It was eerie,” Drucker said. “The power hadn’t been on for a couple of years. Furniture was strewn around. We had to walk through with flashlights.”

Getting to The Chamberlin won’t be a problem in its newest incarnation, she added. Residents will have a pass that will usher them through security.

“It’s the greatest gated community around.”

Through The Years

Given that The Chamberlin is an octogenarian, it’s fitting that it is being reborn as a home for senior citizens. The current building opened in 1928 on Fort Monroe – itself one of the nation’s senior active military bases – but it wasn’t the first hotel to occupy the site on Old Point Comfort.

The beginnings:  The Hygeia, an antebellum edifice that took its name from the Greek goddess of health, opened in 1822. Andrew Jackson stayed there a few years later; John Tyler in the 1840s. In September 1849, a month before his death, Edgar Allan Poe recited his poetry to enthralled guests. During the Civil War, the hotel’s ground floor was used as a military hospital.

The first Chamberlin:  In 1887, Congress gave Washington, D.C., entrepreneur John F. Chamberlin permission to build a new hotel at Fort Monroe. He purchased the Hygeia, tore it down and, just before the turn of the century, opened the Hotel Chamberlin, below. The sprawling Queen Anne structure had all the latest amenities, including ice and electrical plants, a laundry, billiard rooms and a bowling alley. Its glory, though, was short-lived: A spectacular fire leveled the hotel in 1920.

The rebuilt Chamberlin:  The Georgian-style Chamberlin now being overhauled flourished for nearly 75 years, hosting dignitaries of all ranks and evolving as a social hub for the Peninsula and beyond. Its saltwater indoor pool (one of the region’s firsts), bustling lobby and 1,000-square-foot ballroom were among the draws. So was the spectacular rooftop view of Hampton Roads, the Chesapeake Bay, Fort Wool, the Old Point Comfort Lighthouse and Generals Row. 

Heightened security, waning business:  As they did at outposts across the country and around the world, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks necessitated heightened security at Fort Monroe. Getting to the hotel for vacation, a retirement party, a meeting or a wedding reception became harder. By April 2003, business had fallen off more than 70 percent and a staff of 145 had dwindled to a handful. Two months later, the owners filed for bankruptcy.

A new beginning:  In August 2003, a Peninsula investment group stepped in. OPC Hampton, LLC – the OPC stands for Old Point Comfort – submitted a contract to buy the hotel pending, among other conditions, approval of a new 50-year lease by the Army and a change in use. On Nov. 30, 2004, the deal closed. Renovation began in June 2006. One year ago, the grand old hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

– Craig Shapiro