Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 24, 1994 TAG: 9405240080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NATURAL BRIDGE LENGTH: Medium
They were ``a bit bothered'' by the $8 admission fee, but awed by the Natural Bridge and oblivious that the property's owners had just dodged a foreclosure sale.
``I think it's just fantastic,'' Wheeler said as looked up at the 215-foot limestone arch.
The Wheelers tried to figure out how George Washington, while surveying the property for the British crown, climbed 20 feet up the side and carved his initials. ``It must have been in his younger years,'' Michelle Wheeler said.
And they read how Thomas Jefferson predicted the bridge towering above a pretty little creek would ``draw the attention of the world'' after he bought the property from King George III in 1774.
That proved to be true. But Jefferson died bankrupt, and no bank wanted to sink its money into what the founding father called ``the most sublime of nature's works.''
The property was to be auctioned off Friday at the Rockbridge County Courthouse. Included in the sale were the bridge, two hotels, a gift shop and restaurant, a wax museum, limestone caverns and about 1,600 acres of land.
The day before, however, an attorney representing the noteholder said the auction had been postponed, and Alan Mark, the attorney representing Natural Bridge of Virginia, said the loans had been restructured.
Washington-area real estate investor Angelo A. Puglisi headed a group that bought the site in 1988 for $6.5 million from a private stock company that had owned it since 1945.
Mark said Natural Bridge had been working for more than two years to restructure the loans after the banks that held them failed.
``It was the general opinion it would never go to sale,'' said Gerald Sheets of J.G. Sheets & Sons Inc., an auctioneering and motel investment company in Roanoke.
Like many motels and resorts in the past four years, Natural Bridge ``got caught short'' by carrying short-term loans with high interest rates at a time when no banks would make loans on motel properties, he said.
But Mark said the fallout from the credit crunch has nothing to do with the operations. ``We had a record year last year in sales and profits, and we're doing very well this year,'' he said Monday.
The state has twice considered buying Natural Bridge. Gov. William Tuck wanted to buy the attraction for $2 million in 1948, but legislators figured the price was too high. Gov. Mills Godwin floated the idea of buying it for $4.3 million in 1976 when critics were complaining that commercial interests were exploiting a natural monument. But the legislation was killed after the state Chamber of Commerce and other groups objected to the state competing with private industry.
Gov. George Allen, a strong opponent of government intervention in private business, made no overtures this time.
Carl Tolley, who manages the Natural Bridge attractions, said many people come to the ticket window with ``the notion that Natural Bridge is controlled by the federal or state government. One of the biggest questions is, `Why are you able to charge admission?''' When we tell them it's privately owned, that generally answers the question.''
The public owns the other six natural wonders of the new world - Niagara Falls, Yellowstone Park, Mammoth Cave, Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley and Garden of the Gods. But no one - even Tolley, who was born a few miles from Natural Bridge and started working there in 1948 - seems to know the source of that list.
Although the admission price has grown steadily over the years, visitation has remained fairly static. It was 265,000 in 1965 and runs an average of 250,000 a year now, Tolley said.
As tourists were drawn away to living-history villages and theme parks, Natural Bridge added a wax museum and caverns in 1978.
The 120-room Natural Bridge Hotel was renovated a few years ago, and Tolley said resort officials have become more sophisticated in their marketing.
They used to send employees to the parking lot to check license plates. Last year, they started asking people for their ZIP codes when they bought tickets. They were surprised to find that their primary customers came from the Roanoke and Lynchburg areas. The Washington area came in second, followed by Richmond and Tidewater.
``That tells us we need to do a better job at marketing in our back yard,'' he said.
by CNB