Hob Knob Inn, the upscale boutique hotel tucked on Upper Main street Edgartown, is under new ownership.
The hotel owned by Edgartown businesswoman Maggie White was sold last week for $4.9 million to VIC Partners, LLC, a company based in Newport Beach, Calif. The sale closed Nov. 6. The sale price does not include the amount paid for the business, furniture and fixtures. That price is not being disclosed, Ms. White said.
The property was marketed independently with no public asking price.
“We had it on the market for a little over a year and we found terrific buyers from Southern California,” Ms. White told the Gazette Wednesday. She said the buyer is a gentleman with an investment group. “Hob Knob came across his desk and he fell in love with it,” she said.
Two nearby guest houses owned by Hob Knob are still for sale.
VIC Partners invests, owns and operates real estate, primarily lodging properties, the company’s managing partner William D. Booth, Jr. told the Gazette in an email.
“Our long-term strategy is to acquire very good properties and businesses in markets with strong and consistent lodging fundamentals, such as Martha’s Vineyard,” he said. “I see us as long-term owners and we do not have an exit strategy.”
Mr. Booth said the company has hired Vineyard resident Diane Carr as the hotel’s general manager, and he said the company is excited to meet and work with the community.
“Maggie White did a terrific job developing and building this business over the past 20 years,” he said. “It is our intention to continue on with that legacy.”
Ms. White purchased the former Governor Bradford Inn in 1995. The Gothic Revival building dates to the 1900s. After extensive renovations, the Hob Knob opened; the name comes from the initials of Ms. White’s grandmother, Helen Osborne Bruch, and her grandmother’s Ohio estate, located on a hill known as the Knob.
The 17-room inn is described as an eco-chic luxury boutique hotel. When Ms. White moved to the Vineyard she brought cows with her, and they inspired a motif for the hotel and for Hob Knob’s related businesses, Hob Knob Realty and Hob Knob Construction. An abstract wire cow is featured as the inn’s logo.
Ms. White quickly became an Island business leader and was active in the Edgartown Board of Trade, among other things. She said she plans to focus now on her real estate and construction companies.
“It’s certainly bittersweet, but I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time,” Ms. White said. “You get yourself prepared and ready, and it’s time after 20 years to hand the baton to the next generation of Hob Knobbers.”
Ms. White said she took a few keepsakes from the hotel, some gifts given to her over the years — “certainly cow-related” — and some of her family’s things. “Generally speaking the hotel remains fully intact and they intend to manage and run it as they have,” she said. The same staff will continue on under the new ownership, she said.
“It’s a good time of the year to do it, give everybody the winter to get reorganized and ready to relaunch anew in the spring.”
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