No one wants to buy this historic Flint Hills gem, and the owner doesn’t understand why
She’s spent her career in the travel business — and the last 24 she’s spent extolling the virtues of Kansas’ rolling Flint Hills to tourists from around the country and around the world.
But now, Suzan Barnes, the owner and savior of the 135-year-old Grand Central Hotel in Cottonwood Falls, is ready to retire. She’s 70, and her grandchildren are becoming serious competitors on the rodeo circuit. She wants to travel and watch them compete.
So a year and a half ago, she made a big decision. She contacted a broker from New York City who deals in boutique hotels with restaurants and put the business up for sale. She was certain she’d have no trouble finding someone eager to take over the 9,000 square-foot brick hotel that has become known as a retreat for Kansas City and Wichita business people, a getaway for couples looking for a romantic weekend and — lately — hordes of European tourists fascinated by the idea of the Kansas prairie and the cowboys who work it.
“He’s very good,” Barnes said of the broker. “But in a year and a half, he’s gotten no bites.”
None.
Now, Barnes is putting off her retirement and trying to spread the word regionally about the business opportunity she’s offering. The 10-room hotel, with its exposed brick walls, wood floors and a popular steakhouse that seats nearly 100 people, is a steal, she said, and it could offer someone a long, happy career in a part of the country whose scenic vistas, showstopping sunsets and roaming bison are the stuff of Old West legend.
All she can figure is that big city buyers just don’t get it.
“They think, ‘Oh, it’s out the middle of Kansas,’” she said. “They just don’t grasp what we have here.”
Saving a gem
Back in the early 1990s, Barnes, who grew up in Council Grove, was a travel agent, but she missed the Flint Hills.
She decided to move back and found an old stone house “out in the country,” not far from Cottonwood Falls. About that time, a local lawyer paid $41 for the old hotel, which was the cost of its back taxes. The two-story building had been abandoned for 10 years and was in danger of being torn down, but a group of investors eventually bought it and launched a six-month remodel intended to restore the Grand Central to a world class hotel.
Barnes approached them and asked if they needed a manager.
“I said, ‘I can do this. I can run this,’” she said. “I knew it would work.”
The pigeons and chickens residing upstairs were evicted, the building was gutted, and the hotel was restored to include 10 over-sized guest rooms, each named for a longtime Chase County ranch, plus a main level with a dramatic polished oak staircase, a floor covered in paver bricks from the old Kansas City stockyards and stuffed game heads mounted on the walls. Barnes describes the look as a “rich western style with a little bit of a European flair.”
The remodel also included the addition of a restaurant that, at first, was intended to serve only hotel guests. But Barnes said she soon realized that it could become a regional dining attraction and turned it into a full-fledged steakhouse. The 96-seat Grand Grill, which is open for lunch and dinner Mondays through Saturdays and boasts a menu of steaks, salads and burgers, is now a regular draw for locals and people in search of a special occasion meal.
By 2001, the original owners had pulled out of the project and Barnes became the sole owner, taking over the building to the north and adding two private spaces. Now, the hotel has become a destination spot and draws regulars from cities like Emporia, Kansas City and Wichita as well as visitors from around the world intrigued with the romanticism of the Great Plains.
Barnes said she works with a travel agent in Scottsdale, Arizona, who directs Europeans her way. In August of this year, she had visitors from Australia, Austria, Germany and Sweden.
“They want to see the authenticity of the Flint Hills and the cowboy,” she said. “That’s what they’re here for. They want to walk on the prairie; they want to look at the bison. They’re intrigued.”
The hotel, which has a staff of nine, has also attracted a roster of celebrities over the years, including Neil Armstrong, Bill Murray and Lyle Lovett, who has stayed many times, she said, including when he performed as part of the popular Symphony In the Flint Hills in 2010 and in 2015.
Tourist destination
The Grand Central hit a rough patch in 2008, Barnes said, when the recession that hit the east and west costs drifted to the center of the country. But she made it through, and now, she sees optimistic signs every day. More and more people are booking stays as word spreads worldwide about the glory of the nearby Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, the country’s largest remaining stand of tallgrass prairie. And she already has overseas guests booked to stay during next year’s Dirty Kanza bicycle race.
Meanwhile, other businesses that attract tourists are popping up all the time in Cottonwood Falls, population 900, and other nearby towns like Strong City and Matfield Green.
“It’s coming back finally,” she said. “It’s recovering, and we’re seeing some progress here.”
Barnes is frustrated by the fact that she hasn’t had any potential buyers, she said, and a little perplexed. The hotel is a treasure and has been since the day it opened in January 1884 with a masquerade ball, which is depicted in a giant painting hanging in the hotel lobby.
She understands that someone might run the place differently than she has. She has never, for example, accepted online reservations. About 80 percent of her guests are repeat visitors, she said, who have their favorite rooms and favorite times of year to visit. “I want to control that,” she said.
She also understands that a new buyer might want to run the building as something other than a hotel. That’s fine, too, she said. Either way, she’s willing to stay on for six months to help with the transition. Her staff is willing to stay, too.
Barnes didn’t want to publish her asking price in the paper, but it’s more than the $41 the lawyer paid for it and less than the total cost of bringing the place back to life in the mid-1990s.
If she can’t find a buyer, she said, she won’t abandon the place. It means too much to her. She’s accepted the fact that she may have to keep working for a while, though “I really don’t want to still be doing it when I’m 80,” she said.
“I’m going to keep it going,” she said. “I’m going to do whatever I can to find the right buyer.”
Grand Central Hotel & Grill
Where: 215 Broadway, Cottonwood Falls, 620-273-6763
Cost: $160-$190 a night
Restaurant: Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays with both a lunch and diner menu. Reservations recommended.
Online: https://www.grandcentralhotel.com/
Grand Grill menu
This story was originally published December 8, 2019 at 5:01 AM.
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