Today, the Greenbrier is situated on 11,000 acres (4,500 ha) of land with 710 guest rooms, 20 restaurants and lounges, more than 55 indoor and outdoor activities and sports, and more than 35 retail shops.

[3] The current Greenbrier was built in 1913 by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and was owned for much of its history by that company and its successors, Chessie System and CSX Corporation.

Justice promised to return the hotel to its former status as a five-star resort and to introduce "tasteful" gambling for guests to increase profit.

The Greenbrier is also the site of a massive underground bunker that was meant to serve as an emergency shelter for the United States Congress during the Cold War.

They developed the large property as a resort, selling cottages, many of which still stand today, to prominent Southern individuals.

The "White Sulphur Manifesto",[14] the only political paper published by Confederate General Robert E. Lee after the Civil War, advocated the merging of the two societies.

In 1910, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway purchased the resort property, building additional amenities, including the current bath wing, which opened in 1911.

At this time, what had for decades been a summer establishment was converted to a year-round resort, and the name was officially changed to the Greenbrier, after the neighboring county.

The first detainees were Germans; later, they were joined by Japanese diplomats previously interned at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia.

C&O hired internationally renowned interior designer Dorothy Draper to completely redecorate and restore the Greenbrier.

Draper oversaw every element of the design of the property in her trademark style: combining bold colors, classical influences and modern touches, and the work took two years.

Notable attendees included the Duke of Windsor and his wife, Wallis Simpson (who had spent her honeymoon with her first husband at the Greenbrier in 1916), Bing Crosby, and members of the Joseph Kennedy family.

Since the late 20th century, the resort has hosted several presidents and vice-presidents, in addition to foreign dignitaries such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco.

[18] In the late 1950s, the U.S. government approached the Greenbrier for assistance in creating a secret emergency relocation center to house Congress in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.

The classified, underground facility, named "Project Greek Island",[11][19] was built at the same time as the West Virginia Wing, an above-ground addition to the hotel, from 1959 to 1962.

It had suffered from competition from a wide variety of resorts, and declining traffic since the postwar period as patrons shifted to destinations they could reach by automobile.

[citation needed] With Justice's election as Governor of West Virginia in 2017, his daughter Jill took over day-to-day control of the Greenbrier.

The Justices have been in court several times for non-payment of debts, suggesting that bailing out the property might not be easy for the family.

[30] In November 2008, county voters narrowly approved a local option referendum that would permit casino-style gambling at the hotel.

In 1944, Sam Snead became the head golf professional at Greenbrier and in retirement held the position of the resort's pro emeritus.

[33] The Greenbrier was the site of the Ryder Cup in 1979, the first to be contested under the format of United States against Europe, which has been continued to the present.

The project was to be partially subsidized by tax breaks recently approved by the state legislature, with an estimated value of $25 million over 10 years.

The relationship between the hotel and the Saints reportedly developed after a visit by Saints head coach Sean Payton to the 2013 Greenbrier Classic golf tournament to play in its pro-am competition and then to serve as caddie for his friend, PGA Tour player Ryan Palmer.

[44] Set in West Virginia in the aftermath of a nuclear war, the video game Fallout 76 features a location known as "The Whitespring Resort" which strongly resembles the exterior and interior of the Greenbrier, including the hidden government bunker beneath.

[45][46] Too Many Cooks, the 1938 murder mystery by Rex Stout, takes place at the Kanawha Spa, which is clearly modeled after the Greenbrier.

Entombed, a 2010 novel by Brian Keene, takes place in a fictionalized West Virginia hotel with a bunker beneath.

The Grand Design, a 2022 novel by Joy Callaway, is a fictionalized life story of the interior decorator Dorothy Draper during her redesign of the Greenbrier, published by HarperCollins.

Macdonald was ready to correctly guess the Greenbrier but believed host Regis Philbin was trying to talk him out of the answer.