Week of July 23 to 28

We painted the side facing the street this week as far as we could reach on ladders. We will need scaffolding for the rest of that side. Still pushing forward.

Week 2-July 9th - 13th

Ken Jackson is a miracle worker and he created a banister for the upstairs balcony out of treated boards.  It looks great.

He also pushed out the boards so we can recreate the wrap around porch on both levels.

Work Done on the 4th

Before

After

We actually did get some work done on the front part of the hotel.  We scraped the bottom front and painted it. Around the corner is the front we did.....

A few shots from photographer--John Underwood from The Independent.

Our Fourth of July Kickoff Activity

Only a few people came to our 4th of July activity for the hotel but we were great in spirit. About 20 people were there to help start the work on The Old Loxley Hotel. Thanks to Phyllis Freels we have it in pictures as well.




We started off with a flag ceremony and four boy scouts helped us with that. Ben Beckner, Riley Young, Henry Steimle and Moses Steimle as caller started us off with the flag raising and pledge of allegiance. We all sang "My Country Tis of Thee"  and then Valerie Foy (that's me) said the prayer on the food.

We then ate pancakes made by Henry Steimle and myself which were a hit. We also had sausages, orange juice and watermelon. The temperatures weren't too bad.











Then Jim gave everyone a tour of the hotel going up stairs and down and a few pictures were taken.







There are 8 fireplaces in the hotel connected to two chimneys. The bottom floor has 2 fireplaces on each side of the building in two different rooms and the upper floor has two fireplaces on each side of the building. Very ingenious.




Fox 10 did a story for us which ran on the 4th of July and the morning of the 5th of July.  It got a great response.  The Independent had a write up about it as well on Tuesday and then again on Friday. All in all it was a great success and with more exposure--we are hoping for more sponsors and helpers.


Click here for the Fox 10 news report about the Hotel

Click here to read the article in the paper about the Hotel.

Have a great week and we will keep you posted about our progress.

The News Media Reports on the Hotel

Taken by John Underwood for The Independent

It has been a whorl-wind of activity this week and we have much to share.  First on Tuesday, The Independent gave us a front page spread on our plans on the hotel and our kick-off event of Flag Ceremony,  Pancake breakfast and Painting activity.....
The Newspaper report on The Old Loxley Hotel

Then Hal from Fox 10 came with a camera and reported our activity on TV on Wednesday the Fourth of July and ran the story again the next morning.

Fox 10 News Report on The Old Loxley Hotel

Taken by John Underwood for The Independent

We had a great start by scraping and painting the bottom front portion of the hotel and hope for many more painting parties.....

More pictures to come from Phyllis Freels who had a ball taking pictures of the whole inside and outside of the building.  If all goes well--we will start moving in next summer!!!!

A Chance to Help the Hotel Get A Grant!!!

A Voting Up Date!!!  We have 114 votes so far.  Let's keep it going !!


Seeing that this is a big voting year---we do a lot of voting for one thing or another.  The voting for this week is online for The Old Loxley Hotel.  If you are a facebook user you have the opportunity to vote for the Old Loxley Hotel to receive a $250,000 grant to help finish up the work to open us up to a museum and gift shop.

Those who live in Loxley have been looking at this building sitting empty for years and we are all so excited to finally have this building an asset to the community.

Please help us by voting on the Mission: Small Business website from Chase Bank. They are trying to help small businesses get a great push to be successful. The only thing is you have to be a facebook user.

Thank you all for helping.


Click here to get online to Vote!!!

Come Join Us For a Painting Party!!!!!
  Wednesday--July 4th
At The Old Loxley Hotel
         8am---
Short Flag Ceremony with flag raising--Pledge of Allegiance--Patriotic songs
Then A Pancake Breakfast to start the day......


Then scraping, fixing, cleaning and painting. 
Let's paint the town white!!!!


1058 Baldwin Street
Loxley

Our New Cookbook

Our Old Loxley Hotel Cookbook is finally here and you can order your own copy.

Southern Remembrances and Recipes Cookbook 

 The gathering of old Southern recipes was a great delight to those of us wanting to restore The Old Loxley Hotel. There were many memories brought forward and we realized that we were preserving a history of cooking that was almost lost. The cookbook has some original rare recipes which were served in the hotel restaurant back in the 30's and 40's which are shared by those who ate there many years ago.This is a true treasure of a bygone day and many will enjoy the result of following these wonderful courses. There are recipes for Appetizers and Beverages, Soups and Salads, Vegetables and Side Dishes, Main Dishes, Breads and Rolls, Deserts, Cookies and Candy and finally a Miscellaneous section called This and That.  A bargain for $12.00 and all money goes to the restoration of the old hotel.

  $12.00 each plus shipping.  ($2.50) Shoot me an email and the book will be sent to you.

Have a great day!!!

Valerie Foy
Director of Operations
theoldloxleyhotel@yahoo.com

Benefit was a great Success

Booth at the Strawberry Festival

I didn't get a post for our Strawberry Festival success but here are the pictures of what we did.  Our booth was mostly tables with used books and we sold  A LOT of books.  With the sales of the cookbooks and used books and a few other donated items, we made $700.

Table of cookbooks and the Certificate from the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage










Our Loxley Hotel benefit was a great success in Februrary.  We are now preparing our cookbook for the Strawberry Festival and hope that we can start in on the foundation and roof soon.

Valerie showing the Certificate

Mobile Register Article Link

Don't Forget our Recipe Book!!!!

Don't forget we have 2 weeks left until the end of our cookbook fund raiser. So if you would like to help us please click on the link below and you will see how you can help right away.

We just need 17 more $20.00 donations and we will have our goal:

Click here to contribute to our cookbook fund

Thanks for all of your help!!!!

Sample Recipe for you to try in the Spring:

Black Berry  Cake:
2 cups granulated sugar                    1 tsp. Baking powder
1 cup butter or margarine                 1 tsp Baking soda
4 eggs                                              1 Cup buttermilk
4 cups flour                                      1 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 tsp salt                                       2 cups fresh or frozen blackberries

  Mix Sugar and butter until light.  Add eggs one at a time. Set aside. Stir together flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.  Combing buttermilk and vanilla. Add alternately flour and buttermilk mixture to egg mixture, beating after each addition.  Fold in berries.  Pour into 10" greased fluted tube pan or bunt cake pan. Bake at 350^ for 1-1/4 hours until toothpick tested.  Usually not that long. Cool in pan for 10 minutes and invert cake on wire rack.  Cool completely.  Dribble glaze on top. (Glaze: Mix 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar and 2 tbs. milk together well.)

The Foundation will be first

As we get closer to our benefit date of February 4th, 2012, we are working to plan our renovations to save this building. Here are more pictures:

We want the first project to be to level the foundations so we will be working with an expert foundation guy from Mobile who has worked on many old homes there and knows exactly what to do.

We would love to invite you all to attend our Old Loxley Hotel benefit on February 4th from 5pm to 9pm at the Loxley Civic Center.  More info to come.