Historic, century-old SC downtown hotel up for sale. Here’s what to know

Amelia Earhart stayed there as did John Barrymore, Gloria Swanson and Bobby Kennedy.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson worked there.

The history of the Poinsett Hotel goes back 100 years, first as the predominant hotel in Greenville, through tough times when it was almost razed and more recently as a renovated hotel operated by the Marriott chain as the Westin Poinsett.

Its story reflects the same arc as downtown Greenville’s, now a national example of a fully revitalized urban area.

The hotel will soon move onto its next chapter as the principal owner, P. Steven Dopp has announced it is for sale.

Dopp said in a statement the owners GLC L.P. SC Ltd Partnership, had signed an exclusive listing agreement with CBRE to market the property to a preselected group. He said he expects to close the sale by the first quarter of 2026.

He could not be reached for comment on a listing price or prospective buyers.

Located at 120 North Main Street, the hotel was built in 1925 after another hotel, the Mansion Hotel, built in 1824, was torn down. The 12-story Poinsett cost $1.5 million to build.

It is listed on the National Historic Register. The hotel was named for Joel R. Poinsett, a botanist who served as a U.S. representative, foreign minister, and secretary of war, but is probably better known for bringing the poinsettia to the U.S.

The hotel was managed for decades in the 30s, 40s and 50s by Mason Alexander, who historian Judy Bainbridge called the “face of Greenville.”

“Perhaps Alexander’s most-talked-about innovation was his “clean money” policy,” Bainbridge, a Furman University emeritus history professor, wrote in a column for The Greenville News. “Guests checking out were given newly washed coins and crisp new bills in change before he personally said goodbye.”

Bainbridge said the hotel was sold to the Jack Tar hotel chain in 1959. The new owners installed new wiring, 70 new telephones, ice machines and a swimming pool on the roof of the parking garage.

But as downtown Greenville waned so did the Poinsett.

Several people bought it and for a time it was used for senior living.

The hotel closed in 1987 and sat vacant for a decade. It was considered one of the 11 most endangered historical sites in all of South Carolina, according to Historic Hotels of America.

Dopp and his business partner, Greg Lenox, bought the hotel 10 years later for $1.5 million and spent $20 million on renovations over three years. They also owned the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston.

It has 200 guest rooms and 10,000 square feet of meeting space, a breakfast and lunch restaurant known as Spoonbread, honoring a recipe Alexander’s wife, Margaret, found in a cookbook for a cross between corn souffle and corn pudding.

The hotel has been a member of the Historic Hotels of America, an official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, since 2002.