Ye Olde English Inn awaits next chapter

Rocks pulled from nearby Turkey Creek are nestled in the stonework.

A watermark from the flood of 1943 is still visible about five-feet-high in the lobby.

The walls of Hollister’s Ye Olde English Inn sure have a story to tell. And some of the 4,500 people in the inn’s hometown are rooting for someone to write another chapter.

It’ll take mid-six figures to begin to make it happen. The 113-year-old Ye Olde English Inn is for sale.

Jim and Mary Dailey – son and daughter-in-law of renowned romance author Janet Dailey – have listed the 23-room downtown inn, and the accompanying dining room and pub, with Stephen Critchfield of Commercial 1 Brokers. First marketed privately for over $1 million, the owners – via a Dailey family trust – have now chosen to sell the property for $625,000 with their public listing.

Jim and Mary Dailey run Dailey Enterprises, which owns several area properties including New Shanghai Theatre in Branson.

“We would like to focus our efforts on other ongoing projects and developments,” Mary Dailey said via email. “We would love to see someone own this historic establishment and bring it to its full glory.”

Daniel and Lisa Piekos took a chance nine years ago and announced multimillion-dollar renovations plans. That didn’t pan out.

More recently, restoring the iconic Downing Street hotel had an appeal that hooked Janet Dailey in the later years of her life. The author invested some $2 million after her 2010 purchase, but after her death in late 2013, Dailey’s family isn’t carrying the torch.

Hollister’s city administrator is hopeful a buyer will relate to the property’s significance in the quiet Ozarks’ town that has sat squarely in the shadow of Branson for decades.

“The viability of that building sets the tone for our downtown area,” City Administrator Rick Ziegenfuss said. “The old downtown is the icon of our community. We have it on letterhead. We have it on all kinds of things, and the Olde English Inn is the anchor tenant.”

Hope for a hotel
Opened a century ago, just two years after the town was incorporated, it first caused a stir because the inn’s entry was oriented toward the railroad depot – ready to welcome future visitors.

Developer William H. Johnson, a Springfield lawyer with a penchant for real estate, wanted to attract those coming into town by train – often St. Louis businessmen hunting in the hills and fishing the White River – so he chose its distinctive Tudor style. Properties in the young town had largely faced away from the depot, but business owners caught on and built back porches open to the alley, named Birdcage Walk, between Downing Street and Broadway, now Business 65.

“In the day, this was the tourist destination,” Ziegenfuss said.

“It was where the train stopped. Branson didn’t even have a stop.”

Its heyday was in the 1920s–40s, but the town was prone to flooding, and slow to adapt.

Ziegenfuss said Branson learned from its neighbor and developed on higher ground.

“It was a progressive community,” he said of Hollister.

“We had the first paved streets in Taney County.”

And the first movie theater, the first car dealership, the first iron bridge, as well, he said.

But time turns pages.

These days, the old railroad depot serves as the town’s community center, and Branson is the clear destination. Hollister is a town seemingly locked in the past, with its anchor still hauntingly oriented toward the former railroad stop.

The property hasn’t seen regular paying hotel guests in over three decades. Yet an intrigue remains.

“The city believes that is a key facility in our community. I don’t know that that is economically the case as much as it is emotionally the case,” Ziegenfuss said. “There are a lot of great stories surrounding the building, historic kinds of stories and paranormal discussions around it – there are all sorts of dimensions to the character of the building.

“Mary and Jim Dailey are excellent businesspeople in our community, but I think they see it as more of a property. Whereas someone who wants to take that property into the future is someone who would have a different love and feel for it.”

Investments come and go
The Piekoses bought the English-style inn from Branson developer Glenn Patch in 2006 with plans to spend $2.5 million on renovations.

Only modest updates were ever completed, Ziegenfuss said.

Under Janet Dailey, it served as an event space. The best-selling author – her 100 titles have sold some 300 million copies – gave personal touches to the property on the National Register of Historic Places. According to Critchfield’s listing, Dailey decorated each room with new fixtures, furniture, floor covering, paint and a modern-touch: flat-screen televisions.

Today, the dining room is closed and only the pub operates.

Amanda Erwin, assistant manager of the Hook & Ladder Pizza Co., just two doors down on Downing Street, said fully opening the inn could only help the restaurant and downtown. When there have been special events and visitors, she said folks come by for pizza on recommendations from the pub.

“We kind of promote for the pub, and they kind of promote for us. We don’t have liquor in our restaurant, so if someone is looking for a beer with their pizza, we’ll say, ‘Hey, go down to the pub,’ you know?” Erwin said.

“It’s small down here. There’s not a lot of business, so we’ll take whatever we can get. And in Hollister, there really aren’t any good hotels to stay at, honestly.”