Block Island’s Historic Surf Hotel to Reopen After 4 Years
Friday, April 06, 2012
The landmark Surf Hotel, the year it closed. Photo: Ben + Sam/Flickr.
Owned and operated by the Cyr family for more than 50 years, the 1876 gingerbread-style Victorian hotel with its famous wrap-around porch and wooden rocking chairs, had been put up for sale after the family closed it in 2007. With an original asking price of $12 million, the hotel found a buyer late last year, but developer Joe Vita was unable to obtain the proper financing, and the deal fell through. Back it went on the market, just in time for Valentine's Day last year.
Now, with some sweet turn of events, the Surf plans to reopen on July 4, 2012.
The family hotel stays a family hotel
Barbara and Stanley Nyzio, and Lorraine Cyr, children of Beatrice Cyr, are bringing the hotel back under new management. "The Surf has remained empty for too long," they said in a joint statement. "Now we have a plan that will get the hotel open and bring our guests back." According to the statement released to the Block Island Times, Paul and Joan Nedovich of Moodus, CT, and their daughters Heather Rasemus and Kimberly Afonso, approached the Cyrs with the offer to oversee the improvements necessary to reopen the hotel--and manage it once they did.
According to the Times, the hotel is essentially frozen in time, with artifacts, paintings and plates unmoved from its last open season five years ago. Its much heralded return will bring one of the most treasured postcards of the Island back to life. Independence Day cannot come fast enough.
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