The Omni Grove Park Inn

1909

Fred Seely sketched the inn himself, and it was built in under a year

In 1909 Edwin Wiley Grove and his son-in-law Fred Seely bought about 400 acres near Sunset Mountain to build a grand hotel. After rejecting plans from several prominent architects, Seely, who had no formal training in construction or architecture, made his own sketch, and Grove approved it. Workers housed in tents built the inn of rough granite stones in less than a year. It opened on July 12, 1913.

156guest rooms in the original inn

Grove and Seely

Grove let Seely build the inn but would not sell it to him

In 1917 Seely bought Biltmore Estate Industries from Edith Vanderbilt, in addition to managing the inn. His father-in-law Grove had refused to sell him the hotel, though he had eagerly allowed him to construct it. He leased it to Seely instead. Seely managed it until 1927, the year Grove died and the year Seely lost his legal bid to own the hotel.

The war

In World War II the inn held Axis diplomats, then sailors and soldiers

During World War II the inn was first an internment center for Axis diplomats, who were allowed guarded trips to town to buy goods from local merchants, a boon to the strapped local economy. The Navy then used it as a rest and rehabilitation center for returning sailors, and from 1944 to 1945 it was an Army Redistribution Station. The Philippine government functioned in exile from the Presidential Cottage on the grounds.

The Court

Taft resigned from the Supreme Court in the Great Hall in 1930

William Howard Taft resigned from the United States Supreme Court in the Great Hall in 1930. In the mid-1950s, during the Cold War, the inn was seriously considered as a bunker site for the Court. As of 2013, Supreme Court plans call for relocation to the inn in the event of a nuclear attack.

Gingerbread

The gingerbread contest began in 1992 and paused in 2024 after Helene

In 1992 the National Gingerbread House Competition began at the inn, with finalists' creations on display in the halls each November and December. The event was canceled in 2024, when the resort closed for a month and a half because of flooding from Hurricane Helene. The inn lost power and water. The competition returned in 2025.