Dick Taylor remembers everything from the shiny brass railings on the stairways leading to the mezzanine of the old Prince Charles Hotel, when his late father was general manager from the early 1950s to 1965 at the historic downtown landmark.
He still can see guests checking in at the front desk, the switchboard telephone operator connecting calls to and from the hotel rooms, and the elevator lady who took overnight-stayers to the floors above, looking over the city streets.
He sees the bell captain and the bellhops.
He recalls Sunday brunches with the chef carving the prime rib and the New Year’s Eve celebrations and party revelers lifting their champagne glasses to another year. Weddings, wedding rehearsal dinners and private parties, too, in the Magnolia Room.
“It was sort of bittersweet,” says Taylor, 74, who recently took a nostalgic tour of the hotel, which opened April, 25, 1925, published reports say, with a banquet and dance for 150 townsfolk and guests.
Named for Prince Charles Edward Stewart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie of Scotland, according to published news accounts, the old hotel has had its share of successes and failures in the past century, but it found itself thriving after World War II.
“It was a lot of money being poured into Fayetteville after the war,” said Taylor, who lives in Tampa, Fla.
Taylor says his father and the late Raymond Pittman were close friends at Davidson College, which is how Richard Taylor found his way to becoming general manager of the hotel from 1951 to 1965.
“My father was originally from Oxford, North Carolina,” Dick Taylor said. “My mother [Elizabeth Peden Taylor] got her first job teaching business at the local high school. That’s where they met, but she was a Fayetteville native. They were married in Fayetteville during the war, and she remained with her parents there when he was sent overseas. He returned to Fayetteville after his service and they lived with my grandparents at their house on Hay Street.”
‘The lawyers’ table’
Taylor says his father liked managing the hotel.
“He enjoyed his stay there, but anything like that is a 24-hour-on-call situation,” he said. “You have things happen. It’s a pretty demanding job. It took up a lot of his time. He spent a lot of time down there, but I think he enjoyed it.”
Dick Taylor says he spent his share of time in the hotel, too.
“When I was growing up, I would walk down from Haymount,” he said. “Rather than sit in his office or the lobby, he would let me go up to the ballroom, and I could look out the windows. Prior to the war, it was used as a ballroom.”
Dick Taylor came to know the hotel well.
“They always had Christmas parties,” he said of the brown-bagging events before liquor-by-the-drink, “and New Year’s Eve gatherings.”
He can tell you all about the dining rooms.
“There was a group of lawyers from the McCoy-Weaver law firm,” Taylor said. “They would have lunch in the hotel every day. They called it the lawyers’ table. And Terry Sanford would be there for lunch.”
Sanford was elected governor in 1960, but whenever he wasn’t in Raleigh, Sanford still frequented the hotel for lunch with his lawyer colleagues.
“He and daddy were friends,” Taylor said.
Dick Taylor can remember the main dining room adjacent to Sears, Roebuck and Co., where diners could order breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the Sunday brunches.
“I can remember the rib roast station and the guy with his tall hat and cutting the beef for you,” he said. “I remember the prime rib and the heat light.”
Dick Taylor still can taste the club sandwich, too.
“They would fix me a club sandwich,” he said. “That was a treat.”
Taylor remembers his father telling him about when the passenger train would stop at the Railway Depot just down the way from the Prince Charles, with late television entertainer Jackie Gleason aboard.
“Jackie Gleason would bring his cast from New York on the way to Miami,” he said. “You could see them at the train. They partied hard from New York. He brought the whole band and guest stars.”
Dick Taylor recalls his hometown with a fondness—chicken salad sandwiches from Bill and Urbana Crawley’s Carolina Soda Shop across the street from the Prince Charles, movies at The Colony, Carolina and Miracle theaters and shopping at Belk-Hensdale, Ed Fleishman’s Men’s Store and The Capitol department store.
“I had a lot of good memories of growing up there,” said Taylor, who graduated from Terry Sanford High School in 1969 and later from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We had our 30th or 40th high school reunion at the hotel. I knew it had gone up and down. Everybody wanted to save it, but nobody spent any money.”
Dr. Menno Pennink, a retired neurosurgeon, did in 1992 by bringing in 17 investors to stimulate a declining downtown, but investors sold the hotel in 2004. It was purchased at auction in 2007 by a New York investor, according to published reports, but never succeeded. Prince Charles Holdings bought the hotel in 2015, rehabilitating it into the apartment building it is today before running afoul with the city over further construction.
‘I remember its heyday’
Taylor says he planned to be in town on November 7 and reached out to Ann Highsmith, his childhood friend from across the street on Vista Drive in Haymount.
“I remember its heyday,” he said about the hotel, “but it was long gone.”
Today, the hotel is known as The Residences at the Prince Charles, with guest rooms morphed into apartments.
“I wanted to see if I could possibly get in the old hotel,” he said. “I wanted to see what they saved. I just wanted to see what it looked like.”
Highsmith says she accompanied Taylor inside the hotel.
“And what a journey that was,” she said. “He remembered so many details I would never have known about the Prince Charles, but he did spend a lot of his childhood down there. He pointed out that the mezzanine rails, which are now wrought iron, were once brass, which his father insisted be polished every other day until you could see your face reflected in the brass rails. It was so interesting being with him and witnessing his recall of details I never knew about the Prince Charles. I think he was overwhelmed to go back in the ‘grand old hotel.’”
You can only imagine Dick Taylor being a touch anxious.
“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Taylor said. “I was happy they were able to do something with the upstairs. Disappointed the common areas were in disrepair. The manager was talking about the common areas for convention space. The mezzanine is now a makeshift lobby for residents. The lobby area is completely unfinished. But you can see it’s still there.”
Those brass railings on the mezzanine stairways are gone.
“It looks like somebody ripped them off,” he said.
Taylor visited the three or four upstairs apartments awaiting tenants, but he said most are occupied.
“I was impressed with the upstairs units,” Taylor said. “The units are very small, but very nicely done.”
Epilogue
Dick Taylor believes old hotels like the Prince Charles can be revitalized.
“It’s a shame there’s no hotel downtown,” Taylor said. “I have been to old hotels of that vintage. It’s like walking back in time.”
“You can do it. They still work. But you have to know what you’re doing.”
“I wish they would, but I don’t know if it will ever be like it was before,” Dick Taylor said in reliving yesteryear, when Dick Taylor’s father managed the Prince Charles in what once was the best of times for the old hotel, when the bellhops were at the bell captain’s beckoning call and you could see your face in those brass stairway rails leading to the mezzanine.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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