OBSERVER File Photo The White Inn

The Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency (CCIDA) is looking for someone to revive the White Inn.

“We’ve been actively marketing it,” said Mark Geise, chief executive officer of the CCIDA. “We’ve put together a marketing piece and sent that out to a number of hotel developers, more than two dozen. There’s been some interest displayed … we’re working it.”

The downtown Fredonia institution shut down in late 2017 and owner Jeff Gambino, who missed some mortgage and tax payments, moved to Florida. The holder of the mortgage, JG Funding, took possession of the property in a tax sale in March 2019.

SUNY Fredonia had plans in 2018 to buy the property, backed by a grant from the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council. Those plans are on hold, with no comment on them from university officials since then.

Geise said the county is moving towards foreclosing on the property, which still has unpaid taxes attached to it. Until that foreclosure happens, or the taxes get paid by someone, sale and redevelopment cannot move ahead.

If it was open, the White Inn would be celebrating a century in business this year.

Dr. Squire White built the first frame house in Fredonia on the property in 1811. His son, Devillo White, built the home that makes up the “bones” of the current White Inn in 1868. Squire White’s original house was moved to another part of the property and later demolished.

Numerous additions were made to the home over the years before Devillo White’s death in 1913. His daughter, Isabelle, remained in the home.

In 1919, Isabelle sold the property to a joint stock company that planned a hotel at the location, filling a big need in Fredonia, which lacked a hotel after the Columbia Hotel (at the site of today’s 1 Park Place, overlooking Barker Common) burned in 1918.

The hoteliers immediately added a large brick addition to the front of the house, and opened the White Inn to guests in August 1920. The place proved so popular with travelers that another addition was built in 1926. The outside of the structure has changed little since then, although significant interior remodeling happened in 1980.

(The history of the White Inn was taken from the article “The Buildings at 52 East Main Street, Fredonia” by Dr. Douglas Shepard. The article can be accessed on the Historic Structures of Chautauqua County website.)