The Birth Of The Greystone Inn
If you missed them, catch up on the early years of The Greystone Inn, from its origination as Lucy Camp Armstrong’s grand home through a stint as the Lake Toxaway Country Club, in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of our feature series.
At the end of 1976, Peter Batista purchased the Moltz Mansion from The Lake Toxaway Company and continued to operate it as the “country club house.”
Reader Daniel Wood recently recalled in a comment on HTF’s Facebook page that he was friendly with the Batista family and often had the run of the place.
Woods’ brother-in-law was the bartender of the “unofficial” bar at the club (Transylvania County being dry at the time), where movies were shown nightly in the library.
“My family had a social membership to the clubhouse and pro shop. I remember as a young kid not having a concept of how things were paid,” he notes wryly. “I would just charge lunch for all my friends weekly at the pro shop using our club number, treating Orange Crush to my friends.”
This simple but striking image of the Greystone Inn was submitted with its application to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which was granted in 1986. You can view the full contents of the application here.
These blueprints from the original build of Hillmont show that very little has changed about the structure over the years.
Some years later, the clubhouse was moved to a new location just up the hill and the historic home was again put up for sale. In August of 1982, a developer from Florida indicated his desire to purchase the property, raze the mansion, and build condominiums in its place. His plan was met with swift resistance from the Lake Toxaway Property Owners Association, who retained an area law firm and fought the sale. [1] But, at least according to one account, the bulldozers that were to level the mansion were already loaded on trucks before the sale was fortunately quashed. [2]
The property remained under Lake Toxaway Company ownership, mostly unused, during the transitional next few years, as Reg Heinitsh Sr. began to transfer management and eventually majority ownership to his son, Reg Jr.
But in 1984, something wonderfully serendipitous happened: Heinitsh Jr., who had long wanted to do something special with the old historic mansion, met new resident Tim Lovelace, semi-retired and looking for a new venture in the area.
One day, taking a boat ride together across Lake Toxaway, they passed the Moltz mansion and Heinitsh commented, “Wouldn’t that old house make a fine inn?”
Despite the fact that Tim and his wife Harriett (“Boo Boo”) had no prior experience in hospitality, they were intrigued by the idea, and this simple question ultimately led to the forming of a new partnership with Heinitsh.
The Lovelaces first did months of extensive research on innkeeping, and specifically on what attributes collectively made an outstanding inn.
“I concluded that the unique location on the water, next to the country club, being historic and with a commitment to make this a place of exceptional quality which was right for the setting…it was a feasible idea.”
— Tim Lovelace, quoted in a 2001 article in Lake Toxaway Magazine
Having made up their minds, the couple set to work and, following an extensive renovation, the mansion known as Hillmont opened its doors as the Greystone Inn on July 15, 1985.
Read more of the history of The Greystone here.
