Hotel matriarch leaves hard-earned legacy for family to continue
The Summit Inn is celebrating its 107th birthday this year.
And, if it was not for Eunice Shoemaker, the local landmark may not have reached this milestone.
Shoemaker, who died April 5 in Scottsdale, Ariz., dedicated a great part of her life to preserving the historic hotel, which her family says is her lasting legacy.
“I admire her for doing what she did and being able to preserve and run the hotel,” said her daughter, Karen Harris. “I had the chance to run the hotel, and now my daughter is going to have the chance. It makes life a little special to be continuing on a legacy like that.”
After attending Virginia Intermont College, Shoemaker began her working life at the Bedford Springs Hotel as a florist, where she met and married Donald Shoemaker. Eunice, Don and Karen moved to the Uniontown area in 1957 when Don took over the management of the Summit Inn Resort. As managers, they witnessed how the property was falling into a state of disrepair. Karen recalls that the previous owners were taking the profits out of the hotel for themselves and failed to put money back into the hotel.
“The very first summer, they had 10 of their friends coming to Summit,” she said. “They were both so embarrassed of rooms that they hurried up and tried to fix up the rooms.”
The Bell Corporation — the company that owned the hotel — observed how well Eunice and Don managed the property, that it aided the pair in purchasing the inn, Karen Harris said.
“That was my grandfather’s dream — to own the hotel,” said Amanda Voithofer, Eunice’s granddaughter. “My grandmother was very supportive of it and helped him in any way she could.”
But it wasn’t easy going at first.
“They mortgaged everything they owned,” Voithofer said. “They put all of their money back in the building trying to save it. They didn’t take salaries the first few years and chipped-in every way they could.”
Eunice was largely responsible for taking reservations and managing the front office. She was also responsible for buying furniture and carpets and decorating the hotel and guest rooms.
”She did a little bit of everything,” Voithofer said.
The hotel can also be found on the National Register of Historic Places thanks to her efforts.
”It was something they always wanted to do,” Harris said.
She also wanted the hotel to be AAA-approved, but that hope quickly changed in the 1980s when a AAA representative suggested she replace the furniture in the front lobby with modern items.
“We have original Stickley furniture in the lobby,” Voithofer said. “She said, ‘Henry Ford sat in those chairs. Why would we replace if we’ve had so many famous people stay here?’ She kicked him out of the building.”
The furniture, which is still in the lobby, is a favorite part of the hotel for many guests.
”We pride ourselves on having our furniture,” Voithofer said. “It’s beautiful, and it’s what a lot of our guests love about the place.”
Eunice also loved Chestnut Ridge and was instrumental in saving the Laurel Caverns from being developed into a neighborhood that would have been modeled after Bear Rocks, according to David Cale, Laurel Caverns owner.
”She, like Don, was very committed to preserving the Laurel Caverns property, as if it were a state park,” Cale said. “That was their whole idea. They were going to make it like a privately-owned state park — that’s what they committed to.”The pair owned the Laurel Caverns from 1973 to 1986.
Cale, who was friends with Eunice and Don, had a 25 percent interest in the property and stayed on as manager at that time.
He grew to learn that Eunice was one of those people who was more interested in the intrinsic value of things rather than the financial value of something.
“For an awful lot of people, money is more important,” Cale said. “Eunice Shoemaker appreciated things and people for their intrinsic value, not for money or for the latest fad.”
It was this quality, as well as her wisdom, that made her the right person for the job when it came to saving the Summit Inn, while other great porch hotels were facing a demise.
According to Cale, the Summit Inn belongs to the old, great porch hotels — a class of hotels that were built in the early 20th century.
“When the modern hotels came out in the 1950s, all across the country these large, old, great porch hotels were by that time 50 years old,” Cale said. “They could not keep up financially with the efficiency, with the modern technologies. They could not keep up with these large chain hotels. Because they did not have all the elegance and ambiance to them, they were a lot cheaper. All across America, the great porch hotels were disappearing.”
While other hotels failed to stay up and running, the Summit Inn continued to attract guests for summer vacations.
”She had the wisdom and dedication to hard work,” Cale said. “She put together all the ingredients necessary to save the Summit Hotel from being another casualty of the collapse. And that hotel is now still a part of the economy of Fayette County thanks to her efforts.”Shoemaker began to slowly back away from the daily operations of the hotel when computers entered the mix, but she always had a role in making the big decisions, her family said. Even after she moved to Scottsdale, she wanted to be in the loop. She was especially excited about the hotel’s new treehouse, which was recently built by Pete Nelson and featured on the Animal Planet TV show, Treehouse Masters.
“She was still hands-on to the very end,” Harris said.
Eunice’s family has plans to build a memorial in her honor, but the exact form of the memorial is still being discussed. So far they’ve considered the possibility of building a fountain, a fire pit or benches along the walking trail.
“We have family coming in next weekend, and we’ll be trying to figure out what we want to do in her honor,” Voithofer said.
A memorial service led by Pastor Kevin Anderson will be held in Eunice’s honor at Christ Lutheran Church in Chalk Hill at 2 p.m. June 1. Close friends and family are invited to the hotel following the service, Harris said.