THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 6, 1994 TAG: 9410060496
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
The Halifax Hotel, another old ``gray lady'' of the Oceanfront, will bite the dust next week.
On Wednesday, owners Powell and Joan Joyner began auctioning off the furnishings and equipment inside the 44-year-old inn at Atlantic Avenue and 26th Street to prepare for demolition next Tuesday or Wednesday.
Col. Calvin Zedd, a Norfolk auctioneer, opened bidding briskly on 300 lots of merchandise - bedding, crockery, kitchenware, television sets - at 10:30 a.m. as 60 or so would-be buyers wedged their way into the cramped hotel dining room.
``This is the last of the old ladies,'' Zedd told the crowd. ``Everything is for sale. What you see is what you get.''
With that he sold two metal tanks containing refrigerant for $75, then sold gauges for the tanks for $25. Sales continued late into the afternoon and were to resume this morning, if anything remained to be hawked.
Age and a dwindling customer base doomed the Halifax, a 35-room hotel that had offered Southern-style seaside relaxation for a solid core of customers from Richmond, Roanoke, Petersburg and other inland Virginia cities.
A site plan for the new resort inn was approved Monday by city planners, said Jay Johnson, director of operations for Tidewater Inn Management. Construction is to begin as soon as demolition debris is cleared.
The passing of the Halifax marks the latest in a series of moves to clear away resort landmarks that have either outgrown their usefulness or are beyond repair.
The Dome, or Virginia Beach Civic Center - a geodesic structure deemed an architectural wonder when it opened in 1958 - fell to wrecking crews early in September.
Next in line for destruction will be either the Peppermint Beach Club, an 88-year-old fixture at 15th Street and the Oceanfront, or the shocking pink Sea Escape, a 50-year-old hotel at Atlantic Avenue and 17th Street.
The Dome and the Peppermint Beach Club properties will be occupied temporarily by parking spaces, which will make up for some on-street slots lost in city-sponsored street improvements in the last eight years.
The Sea Escape and two adjoining public restrooms would be razed to make room for a park, giving eastbound motorists on 17th Street a new ocean vista.
The Halifax Hotel was sold to the Joyners in 1981 by Charles and Margaret Gilliam, the last of their family to be connected with the resort hospitality business in Virginia Beach. They had inherited the hotel from Margaret Gilliam's mother and aunt, two of nine Leggett sisters who migrated to Virginia Beach from Scotland Neck, N.C., after World War I. The sisters opened a series of Oceanfront cottage inns that included the Avamere, the old Avalon and the Idlewhyle. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH/Staff photos
A still-working fan and light fixture were part of 300 lots of
merchandise to be auctioned at the Halifax Hotel, a 44-year-old
Oceanfront inn to be demolished next week.
Col. Calvin Zedd, with his hand raised to point out bidders, hawked
Halifax Hotel items ranging from bedding to kitchenware to TV sets.
Staff map
by CNB