Coolfont Resort

In 1961, Sam Ashelman (1913–2010), a Washington, D.C. businessman who had been influential in the consumer cooperative movement, bought the property, consisting of about 1,200 acres including a landmark 1913 house built by author John Herbert Quick and called Coolfont in reference to nearby springs.^[1] In 1965, Ashelman, together with his wife Martha and Rosalyn and Alden Capen, established the hotel.^[2][3] The Ashelmans added numerous cabins, private homes, a conference center, and other buildings on the grounds.^[4] It became a West Virginia landmark visited by numerous famous guests, and noted as a retreat for Washington politicians who used the facility for both recreation and for policy discussions.^[5] Among the hotel's best known regular guests were Al and Tipper Gore, who famously got lost in the woods while hiking at Coolfont a few days after Al Gore was elected Vice President of the United States in the 1992 election.^[6]

By 2003, Ashelman's son Randall was in charge of operations, while Sam Ashelman remained active and continued the activities of the non-profit Coolfont Foundation for the Arts, which brought musicians, writers, and others to the resort.^[7] In 2005 the Coolfont was sold for a reported $7.8 million to the Carl M. Freeman Companies, a real estate developer with aspirations to upgrade the resort and create a community of homes.^[8][9] However, company CEO Joshua Freeman was killed in a helicopter crash the following year,^[10] and the resort lay dormant and in disrepair.

In 2014 the company removed a substantial amount of timber from the property.^[11] The property was listed for sale and in 2016 was put up for auction. The entire remaining resort property, amounting to 988 acres, was sold in nine parcels for a total of $2.673 million.^[12]

In 2019 the resort began reconstruction and was set to reopen by May 2020. The restaurant and some lodging reopened during early- and mid-2020. A brewpub opened on the resort campus in 2019.^[13]

On January 26, 2025, a multi-alarm fire broke out in the main building of Coolfont Resort, leading to the "complete loss" of the main hotel building.^[14]