FARMVILLE – The sale of the Hotel Weyanoke is a done deal and the building will see its current use continued for the foreseeable future.

The deed was recorded Friday in the Prince Edward County Courthouse, signed, sealed, and delivered before afternoon snow fell and could cause any delay.

“We beat the snow,” Marc Galt told The Herald on Monday morning.

The building's immediate future will mirror the present.

“We're not going to make any changes to the existing tenant mix, at this point in time. We're resigning the lease with the 202 Bar & Grill and negotiating with the three sorority groups that have individuals leasing on the three floors for student housing,” said Galt, the managing member of Weyanoke Lofts, LLC, which he described as the acquiring entity. “And I'm bringing in two partners.”

Asked if maintaining the status quo is a long-term plan or short-term, Galt answered, “we probably will not make any significant changes for a period of time. We'll readdress it in three our four years but I think the best use, based on the economics at this point in time, are the existing use, with some renovations and addressing some maintenance.”

Galt is pleased to be joining the local community. “We're very excited to be in Farmville and within a period of time we're going to address the feasibility of adding additional residential units on the back side of the parcel but nothing's definitive at this point in time.”

Galt was the high bidder-$830,000-at last month's auction on the Hotel Weyanoke's front lawn.

Kenneth Brumfield, who purchased the building in 2000, watched those December proceedings from the historic building's doorway.

Galt was effusive about the building's merits following his successful bidding in December.

“It's a wonderful building. It has numerous opportunities, whether it be student housing, upscale housing for the local community, or possibly a boutique hotel,” he told The Herald just after signing post-auction documents. “We're going to evaluate that in the upcoming month, probably not make any firm decision in the short run.

“It's too nice of a building to make a snap decision,” Galt continued. “We want to give it a good deal of due diligence before we kind of lean in one direction or another as to future development.”

The Hotel Weyanoke was built for about $140,000, that capital outlay raised completely by local citizens in 1924, according to Today And Yesterday In The Heart Of Virginia, published by The Herald.

The Hotel Weyanoke opened in 1925 and was so successful so quickly that the entire bonded indebtedness was cleared by 1933, with stockholders expecting dividends.<br />
The hotel's most famous guests were Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan, who attended a state conference of the Lions Club there in 1927.