Business editor

mbradwell@observer-reporter.com

By the end of this month, The George Washington will begin a return to its roots, eventually becoming the boutique hotel its owner Kyrk Pyros has always envisioned for the 85-year-old building.

Pyros will open 16 newly remodeled hotel rooms to accommodate a wedding reception that was booked more than a year ago. The conversion is the beginning of a multi-year plan to eventually offer 72 rooms.

"On May 29, we'll have the 16 rooms because I made a promise to a bride 16 months ago," he said, explaining that the upcoming wedding represents one of many requests for rooms from future brides who want to have their wedding reception at the hotel and provide rooms for overnight guests.

The rooms that are being prepared are on the sixth floor of the hotel, which until last month contained rooms for residents of Cherry Tree Assisted Living. Pyros, who took over the assisted living business with the building when he purchased it on Dec. 31, 2002, voluntarily relinquished his state license on March 31 to pursue his plan for the hotel conversion. He said the hotel has invested $1.4 million in converting the assisted living rooms to hotel rooms and suites.

The largest of four planned suites will be the 2,000- square-foot John F. Kennedy Suite. Other rooms and suites will range from 600 to 1,200 square feet.

"I've always had it in the back of my mind to make this into a hotel," he said during an interview Thursday, adding that since he and his staff took over the banquet and restaurant business from a previous operator three years ago, business has increased fivefold.

Over the past weekend, the hotel hosted five separate events, as well as 130 guests for a Mothers Day brunch.

"That's a great thing, but I'd like to have 20 to 30 events in a weekend," he said, adding that the hotel is now enjoying a growing "peripheral" business. It now regularly provides banquet and meeting room space for area civic organizations and business groups, offers jazz brunches, live music in the Pioneer Grill's bar and a monthly five-course gourmet dinner. In addition to local demand, guests now come from the tri-state area, especially from Pittsburgh, Wheeling and Morgantown, W.Va.

"We have people begging for hotel rooms," Pyros said, noting that in addition to being regularly asked about rooms for wedding guests, the requests come from local law firms looking for overnight accommodations for clients as well as the construction company that has been doing restoration work on the courthouse dome.

As the wedding reception business grew, Pyros said the hotel worked out agreements with other area hotels that put up the guests who attend receptions at The George Washington.

"We pay for the shuttle for them to go back and forth," he said.

Within two years, Pyros said he expects to offer 72 rooms, but added that the number could ultimately go to 100 rooms. He currently rents 52 apartments in the building, and noted that there have always been 10 rooms designated as hotel rooms throughout the building.

While the first 16 rooms and suites are on the sixth floor, reaching 72 rooms will require conversions on the third, fourth and fifth floors.

In addition to the construction work required to achieve the conversion, Pyros is busy with a number of administrative tasks related to the project.

He said he's in negotiations with two companies that specialize in operating boutique hotels, including one that focuses on historic hotels. While he hopes to put one of those "badges" on the George Washington site, he said he would continue to own the building and staff it. He said he will also apply to AAA for its four-star ranking.

He's also working with the state on applying for a historic tax credit for the building and is in discussions with the city about designating the downtown an historic district.

"I'd like (the city) to be declared an historic district and an entrepreneurial zone," he said, adding that he's also working on ways to increase parking accommodations he'll need as the number of rooms expands.

Ron DeVerse, the hotel's director of operations, said valet parking is now provided for larger events.

Pyros, who also operates a crane company in addition to specializing in restoring older commercial buildings, said he once restored a historic hotel in Chicago before selling it to investors.

With the George Washington, however, he said he's here to stay.

"It's a really bad business decision to fall in love with a building," he said, "but I own this building; it is not a flip. Here, I do things not just based on money but out of pride and a love for the building."

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