White Sulfur Springs, W.Va. - Kentucky's Keeneland race track and West Virginia's historic Greenbrier resort have announced a strategic partnership.
The agreement between the 721 room resort featuring a spa, PGA golf course and a casino opening in July, and the famed 75-year old race track will enable Keeneland and Greenbrier to offer client packages featuring the amenities of each location.
Detailed at press conferences at Keeneland
and Greenbrier, the partnership is expected to evolve over time, but client packages will first become available during Keeneland's Fall Meet.
Keeneland race winners, club members and buyers during sales will be eligible for overnight stays and access to resort amenities at Greenbrier.
Likewise, guests and members of Greenbrier will be able to fly aboard resort aircraft to Keeneland for the day or for overnight excursions during meets.
By sometime in 2011 Greenbrier will also have a train which might make trips to Keeneland as well, according to the resort's owner.
A display of Keeneland memorabilia will appear in Twelve Oaks, an equestrian-themed lounge in the resort's new Casino Club, a 102,000 square-foot facility scheduled to open on July 2 with a $2,000 a couple black-tie affair. And Keeneland magazine will be placed in every guest room within the resort.
Greenbrier, owned for 99 years by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, later CSX (with the exception of four years during World War II when it was operated as a military hospital) was sold in May of 2009 to Jim Justice, a millionaire coal man who resides in nearby Lewisburg.
He closed a deal on the resort on May 7, 2009 after first talking with CSX executives on April 29 of that year about preventing its sale of to a hotel chain.
Justice has moved at what could be considered the speed of light in his brief 13 months with Greenbrier.
The casino, opening in two weeks, hadn't been conceived when Justice purchased the facility and didn't break ground until the last week of August, '09.
During the last weekend of July, Greenbrier will host the Greenbrier Classic, a PGA event that is part of the FedEx Cup and the first of a contracted six year run of the tournament. That too wasn't finalized until last August and wasn't even considered before Justice bought Greenbrier.
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"I'm a believer that in this world you've got to pound round pegs in square holes," Justice told after a press conference at Greenbrier to announce the partnership in West Virginia. "I tell people if they don't have a real passion for what they are doing, go get a job turning a bolt. In my world we have to move fast."
And move fast Justice does. During the 13 months he's owned the resort, he's closed a deal to sell his West Virginia coal operations to a Russian company, inked the golf deal, built an underground casino all the while coaching the Lewisburg girls High School basketball team.
The partnership with Keeneland developed just as fast as most accomplishments of the mid-six-footer who "a hundred pounds ago" played golf "400 times" with hall-of-famer Sam Snead.
"He was there (Keeneland) in April, just a few weeks ago," track President Nick Nicholson said. "He said 'Keeneland and the Greenbrier ought to do something together.' I said 'Yes, sir, that's a good idea.' He said 'let's do it sooner rather than later,' and I said 'Yes, sir, that's a good idea.' He said 'I want you to come to Greenbrier and I want you to sit down with our staff and let's come up with some ideas.' I said 'Yes, sir,' and I'm thinking in my mind I'm booked all summer, when am I going to find time to get to Greenbrier, as much as I'd love too. I said to him, 'I'll try to get up there in June or July, and he said 'May would be betterÖ' And here we are in the middle of June with an announcement."
What the partnership will do in the longrun is still unknown -or, at least, unmentioned. But Justice said he will have fun figuring it all out.
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"There's no ulterior motive to build a Greenbrier at Keeneland or to redecorate Keeneland in Greenbrier attire or out here the same way, or start selling Greenbrier chateaus at Keeneland and all that kind of stuff," he told . There's no ulterior motive other than the fact that it's just such a good blend. And from that, who knows where we'll grow, exactly what we'll be able to do."
The Greenbrier, with its classic architecture, 10 lobbies, 40 meeting rooms and conference center is located in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. on 6,500 acres of Allegheny mountain landscape. The National Historic Landmark opened for business in 1778 and hosted five sitting U.S. presidents before the Civil War and later, every president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush.
According to The Greenbrier's historian Robert Conte, Ph.D., however, the most powerful visitor during that time was also a regular: Lexington's own Henry Clay. "The Lion of White Sulfur Springs," as he was known, stopped at what is now one of The Greenbrier's cottages on every trip between Washington and his home Ashland.
Greenbrier's history also includes what is known as "The Bunker." A relic of the Cold War era, the massive underground facility was maintained as a safe refuge for Congress in the event that relations with the Soviet Union got hot - nuclear hot. The Bunker remained secret and ready to host the Federal Legislative Branch until its lease expired and was not renewed in 1995 after a Washington Post article revealed its existence.
Business Lexington reporter Erik A.Carlson stayed a night at The Greenbrier as the resort's guest following the joint announcement with Keeneland.