BY MILES LAYTON

EDENTON — Let’s just say it like it is – we have some good news!

During Monday’s Edenton Town Council meeting, Down East Preservation announced that it would restore the Hotel Hinton on East King Street next to the 1767 Courthouse. Let that sink in for a minute. 

Down East is the Edenton and Belhaven-based restoration company that has transformed Northeastern North Carolina with projects like the Herringbone, Kadesh AME Zion Church, Hayes Plantation and many historic houses.  

Down East owner Dawson Tyler said plans call for restoring the hotel to its original appearance when it was built in 1926. Rather than apartments, there will be more than 60 hotel rooms, with the first floor featuring a restored bar and meeting room. 

“I’m excited. My team’s excited and we are working really diligently to bring this thing to something that I think all of you can be proud of and hopefully, the entire town of Edenton,” he said. 

Councilman Elton Bond asked how long this project would take to complete, maybe four to five years. Tyler praised Down East’s talented team and answered that if everything goes as planned, the project will be completed within about a year – “A project that we intend to do fast. … We think that from when we start that building to when we finish it, it’s a 12-month project.” 

Mayor Hackney High asked the question on this journalist’s mind, maybe the public’s mind too since we’ve all been limbo for a long time – “Dawson, given what you told us has been going on in all the site engineers and plans and design elements and things, based on your experience in working with them (SAGA) over the last five months, does it appear to be a go?”

Tyler answered, “There would be no world in which all the money that’s being spent, all the time that’s being spent, all of the excitement and minds shared — it’s a go. And that, by the way, is the only reason. You know, if I had the slightest feeling that it wasn’t, I would not want to leverage my company to be a part of that. I want this thing to be done in a way that we’re all proud of, but done.”

High asked how receptive SAGA is to Tyler’s ideas for transforming Hotel Hinton.

Dawson answered, “They’ve been extremely open-minded to the point that they have an in-house design staff that typically does finishes and all that sort of stuff. And they have said, ‘Look, y’all seem to have a good idea of what makes Edenton tick. We wanna use your people to pick out everything down to finish.’”  

Folks can take a light tour and see concept drawings during an open house on May 30. Tyler said he would provide the Council with quarterly updates about the project’s progress. 

 

Tyler’s presentation to Council showed old photos and postcards of what Hotel Hinton looked like in its glory days. 

“These are all old pictures, old postcards, that I’ve gathered up to bring the building back to kind of what you see in this picture, which was a really attractive mid 1920s building that was built in 1926, kind of art deco inspired, a place that really sells Edenton, allows people to come into the heart of Edenton to stay, hopefully spend their money with with our downtown merchants, and enjoy our our wonderful town.”   

Flashback — from all accounts, Hotel Hinton was a fantastic hotel when it was built in 1926 – a time of growth and prosperity for Edenton. Hotel was a popular spot for many, many years.   

In 1960, Chowan County bought the building, using it for government offices until 2015 — SAGA Realty and Construction later purchased the property.  

In recent years, the hotel has remained vacant and, quite honestly, has been deteriorating. 

In December, Council unanimously approved a Major Special Use Permit (MSUP) for SAGA to develop the property. 

SAGA signed off on 13 conditions established by Council that the company must abide by when developing the property.    

According to the MSUP, “If any of the conditions set forth herein shall be found in violation, the Town Planning Director will send out a notice of a violation that will require a resolution to the violation within 60 days from the date this notice is received. If additional time is needed, the applicant can request additional time that is reasonably necessary to remedy the violation.”   

Though apartments were planned for the property, these plans have changed. 

“We’ve gone through this process with SAGA over the past five months where we have focused on that one thought,” Tyler said. “We want to bring the plans, the planning, and the execution of the hotel more to what it was, which was a hotel. So what SAGA brought to y’all in December was a hotel, but it was kind of an apartment building. Right? It was a hybrid, so to speak. And what we have spent the past five months doing with SAGA is trying as a team to drive this building back to being a hotel.” 

Tyler continued, ”You know, I think that if you look out there in the community as a whole and you ask somebody you know, economically, what do we really want to be there? Folks would answer, ‘We really want a boutique, nice hotel for events, weddings, a place for travelers stay downtown.” 

That said, Down East and SAGA must play by these conditions listed within the MSUP:

• No condominiums unless an additional Major Special Use Permit is applied for and granted
• Project will contain no less than two commercial spaces on the ground floor facing East King Street, and a combination of short-term rentals and rentals of less than one year. No other uses may be permitted without the express consent of the Town of Edenton. The permitted applicant can request review of the occupancy data with the Town Administration for consideration of an amendment to these conditions after one year from the opening.  
• All lodging units must comply with the Town of Edenton Unified Development Ordinance and all other local, state and federal ordinances, laws, rules and regulations applicable to hotels and extended stay lodging, including management. 
• Any variations, amendments, enforcement or modifications from the protective covenants, conditions and restriction for Hotel Hinton would require expressed written approval from Preservation North Carolina.  
• Upon issuance of a building permit for the project, owner must follow the National Park Service part 2 scheduled completion timeframe. Any variations, amendments, enforcement or modifications from the original scheduled completion timeframe would require expressed written approval from the National Park Service. 

This property has a lot of potential because it’s located in the heart of the historic district in a town that attracts tens of thousands of tourists yearly. With the opening of Hayes Plantation as a state park along with the Harbor Town Project’s potential, Edenton’s tourism base is poised for strong growth.

​​”My intent in being involved in this project is to drive this thing forward in a way that represents the town, and it represents where the Hinton sits within the town, right in the heart of the historic district,” Tyler said. “The Hinton has gone through a lot of different cycles in its life. It’s always kind of interestingly enough, if you know the history of the place, it’s always been a place where people, travelers came to Edenton to stay. That’s just the history of it.”

More Council news from Monday’s meeting will appear later this week.

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