Ohio couple fulfills plan, opens Wilmington hotel

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) Growing the Hotel Riverwalk took a year of planning, months of renovations and weekly trips from Ohio to Wilmington and back for Troy and Carla Reed. But with the eight-room hotels first month of business under their belts, the Reeds are starting to see all the time they put in pay off.

Troy, a lawyer, and Carla, whose background is in corporate retail, started looking seriously at the hospitality industry last year. The Ohio couple felt it was time for a change - in both profession and scenery.

They knew they wanted to be in a downtown setting, preferably somewhere warm. Though theyd never been to Wilmington, a property at 117 S. Second St. caught their attention while digging through online listings: the former site of the Clarendon Inn, which closed in 2012.

We came down and looked at it, and that was it, Carla said. You could see the potential. It just kind of checked off all the boxes that we had in our mind.

After closing on the property in February, the couple spent four months trading off between renovating the hotel in Wilmington and staying with their two sons in Ohio. Amid carpet installation and painting, they sent a son to college, put their house on the market and moved three states south with their younger son.

The result is a small boutique inn with eight rooms instead of Clarendons 11 - the Reeds live in a now-walled off part of the hotel. But they worked hard to make the rooms cozy and comfortable, bringing in new beds and flat-screen TVs, constructing a guest lounge and a grab-and-go breakfast area. Before it was the Clarendon, the circa-1950s building was a Catholic school, and the Reeds designed their space to balance its old-fashioned feel with modern amenities.

Were really trying to cater to folks that want to have a good experience in Wilmington, Troy said. Its a destination. We have everything that you would have at the Courtyard or different places; its just a different vibe.

Talk about hotel growth in Wilmington usually focuses on the six-story Courtyard Marriott that opened downtown this year, or the Embassy Suites planned for near the Convention Center. But smaller inns like Hotel Riverwalk account for a lot of business downtown.

According to numbers from the Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau, small inns and bed and breakfasts add nearly 60 rooms to Wilmingtons unit total, mostly in the downtown Historic District. While the lions share of the nearly 4,600 hotel rooms in the city are in limited-service hotels and motels, boutique hotels meet a demand for upscale yet inexpensive spaces within walking distance of downtown.

In Hotel Riverwalks block are the Hotel Tarrymore, the Wilmingtonian and the Graystone Inn; Stemmermans Inn on Front Street is just a block away.

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Ohio couple fulfills plan, opens Wilmington hotel