Piedmont Hotel dedication ceremony in 2008. (File photo)
GAINESVILLE - The Longstreet Society is kicking off a fund-raising campaign Thursday, entitled "The Piedmont Hotel: Telling His Story."
The Society has supported the Piedmont project all along, but for the last twelve years the building was owned by the Gainesville-Hall Trust for Historic Preservation and together the two organizations have raised over $400,000 for its restoration. Now that the title transfer is complete, Confedrate Gen. James Longstreet's Piedmont Hotel belongs to the Longstreet Society once again and the remaining $48,000 mortgage is its sole responsibility.
The Society seeks to pay off the mortgage and secure the future of the historic hotel and to move forward with other projects like installing a fire suppression system, some tree work on the property and, one day, securing additional land that once belonged to the Piedmont.
Gen. Longstreet opened the hotel on Main Street (now 827 Maple Street) in
1876 and he and his family owned the property until 1904. The Longstreet Society began restoring the remaining portion of the old building in 1995. The hotel is now the Society’s headquarters and contains the room where President Woodrow Wilson and his wife often stayed and where their daughter Jesse was born, a museum room and a library both dedicated to Gen.
Longstreet, and the Judge William L. Norton Jr. Community Room.
The hotel is open to the public five days a week and offers meeting space for local organizations.
Donors are being asked to sponsor a $500 mortgage payment and automatically become Longstreet Society Life Members. Current Life Members will be enrolled in the ranks of Longstreet’s First Corps—a new donor category — with an additional donation of $500. Life Members and First Corps Members will have their names listed on one of two donor plaques planned for the Judge William L. Norton Jr. Community Room. Donations of any amount will be accepted and are tax deductible.
