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“The tournament surely helped us get our message out, opened the world’s eyes to West Virginia,” says Justice, who pays $7.5 million as title sponsor.
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Justice has transformed the event into a weeklong festival, with free concerts for tournament attendees by big-name acts, including the Black Eyed Peas and Brad Paisley, which draw almost 350,000 people to the area. (The resort’s courses have long been known for their quality local boy Sam Snead was once the resident pro.) Now in its third year, the tourney, played on the Old White course, was recently named “best in class” among the 44 main Tour stops by the PGA. Justice scored a coup when he landed a PGA Tour FedEx Cup tournament for the property, the Greenbrier Classic. “We’re changing the energy of the place without disturbing or tainting its history,” he says. Within a year, Justice had also added a superb steak house (the sleek Prime 44 West, after former NBA star and West Virginia native Jerry West), upped the level of service at the spa, and begun a much-needed renovation of the guest rooms.
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He made a quick assessment: what to keep (the retina-scorching Dorothy Draper colors and floral patterns in the common areas), what to add (an extraordinary amount of things for children to do-bowling, paintball, an arcade, and a movie theater among them-as well as a guests-only casino), and what to leverage (the resort’s four golf courses, its excellent sporting club, its bucolic Allegheny setting, and its legacy). Ultimately, he spent approximately $43 million for the hotel, spa, golf courses, sporting club, future casino, a break-up fee to Marriott, 500 home lots, and the assumption of debt. When he got wind of an agreement then-owner CSX was about to sign in 2009 with Marriott to run the resort, Justice stepped in and offered $15 million in cash. Along the way, it acquired a dowdy image that it hadn’t been able to shake. It was also, by turns, an internment camp for Nazi diplomats, a convalescent home for American officers, and the site of a top-secret bunker designed to house the entire Congress in the event of nuclear war. For most of its history, it was a place to see and be seen, its grand white columns and expansive lawns lending it both gravitas and glamour. that’s not enough.”Īs far back as the year it opened, 1788, the renowned 6,750-acre, 710-room resort has been the economic lifeblood of the southeastern part of West Virginia, as Justice, a resident of nearby Lewisburg since 2001, is keenly aware.
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“Then you can feel like you’ve really accomplished something. “I wanted this to be a thriving, profitable business that substantially improves employment in the area,” he emphasizes. Justice Companies-the firm still has 47 coal and farming operations-to his son, Jay, so that he can focus his considerable energies on the Greenbrier. When Justice says “all-in,” he means it: He sold his West Virginia mines in 2009 and turned over much of the operation of the James C.