The Greenbrier Hotel, owned by Gov. Jim Justice and his family, has been announced for auction on the courthouse steps late this month because of default, according to a legal advertisement placed in Lewisburg’s West Virginia Daily News.
Justice gained goodwill and steps toward statewide name recognition when he bought The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in spring of 2009. Justice, a two-term governor, is now a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and is considered the frontrunner because of his broad name identification and West Virginia’s recent voting trends.
The foreclosure is on The Greenbrier Hotel Corp., which is represented by Justice family members and associates.
The Justice companies released a statement confirming the legal notice but disputing the motives. It was headlined, in all caps: “ANOTHER POLITICAL STUNT BY THE DEMOCRAT MACHINE.”
Attorney Bob Wolford of Grand Rapids, Mich., on behalf of the Justices, stated, “Let me be clear that the Greenbrier will not be sold, and the Justice family will take all necessary action to ensure that there will not be any adverse impact on their ownership of the Greenbrier or the Greenbrier’s operations and the ability of the Greenbrier to continue to provide world class service for its guests will be uninterrupted.”
This deed of trust, which was originally recorded in 2014, at that time was recorded for the benefit of JPMorgan Chase Bank, the lender. It was originally recorded securing a promissory note made by James C. Justice II, the borrower and now the governor. The note that it secured was for $142 million.
The statement released by the Justice family described a long standing personal banking relationship with JPMorgan Chase dating back decades. As part of that relationship, the statement indicated, the Governor had pledged a second lien position in the Greenbrier Resort behind Carter Bank & Trust to obtain better banking terms from JPMorgan Chase. Over the past several years, the statement said, the Governor has paid down his debt to JPMorgan substantially.
That statement said the governor and JPMorgan had been working in good faith under a mutual agreement since 2021 and under that agreement the governor’s debt to JPMorgan has been reduced to $9.4 million. Performance and payments to JPMorgan have even been made as recent as the end of June of this year, according to the Justice statement.
On July 1, 2024, the statement said, the governor was summarily notified in writing by JPMorgan that, despite the existence of a mutual agreement to resolve the outstanding obligations, the financial company had sold its loan to Beltway Capital. After purchasing the loan, the statement indicated, Beltway immediately declared the loan to be in default and initiated suit against the governor and certain of his companies and commenced foreclosure proceedings against the Greenbrier.
“This deceitful move by JPMorgan is nothing more than the latest political stunt by the Democrats to undermine the next Republican Senator from West Virginia,” the Justice companies stated, contending that in recent days, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s “staunch ties to the Democrat party and his support for the Biden-Harris administration and continued control of the Senate by the Democrats have been well documented. This political stunt is just the latest of several rounds of attacks on Governor Justice and his businesses for political gain.”
Justice’s most recent Senate financial disclosure lists personal debt of $25 million to $50 million with McCormick 101 LLC of Hunt Valley, Md. and due upon demand. Beltway is characterized as a loan servicer for McCormick 101, and the two share an address.
Typically, a trustee appointed by the lender sends notice of foreclosure to the borrower and to any other subordinate lienholders. This process notifies those affected when the foreclosure sale will be and the terms. This is the notice, which has to be advertised in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, at least twice. This is the first such notification.
The sale was listed as 2 p.m. Aug. 27 to the highest bidder at the front door of the Greenbrier County Courthouse.
The property being foreclosed on constitutes 60.5 acres, and that does not include the entire Greenbrier Hotel complex. It generally includes the hotel itself and the parking. The balance of the property like golf courses, tennis and medical facilities are owned by other Greenbrier-related entities.
The Greenbrier, which dates back to 1778, is considered a National Historic Landmark set in the Appalachian Mountains in White Sulphur Springs, where people came to take the sulphuric waters. A total of 28 presidents have stayed at the hotel, including Dwight Eisenhower. The hotel property is also the site of an underground bunker that was meant to serve as an emergency shelter for members of Congress, if necessary, during the Cold War. Today visitors can take tours of the bunker.
Last year, Republican members of Congress gathered for a retreat at The Greenbrier. The Southern Legislative Conference, featuring lawmakers and staff from around the region, was held at The Greenbrier last month. As it does each summer, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce will have its annual summit there this month, August 28 to 30. A LIV Golf tournament, featuring top class golfers, is set for The Greenbrier from August 16 to 18.
Liens placed against The Greenbrier because of unpaid sales taxes over the past year have hinted at financial challenges. Last month, the state tax department withdrew two liens amounting to $897,615. That left five liens amounting to $2,752,907 still owed.
Justice and his family have been involved in a range of financial conflicts, including a battle over $300 million in loans versus longtime banker Carter Bank & Trust. When the bank was trying to collect on that debt last year, a legal advertisement announced a courthouse auction of The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a residential property owned by the Justices. That auction never happened after the Justices filed suit and the action was held up in court while the two sides negotiated.
Last month, hundreds of tracts of other properties owned by the Justice were put up for sale at county auctions because of property taxes that went unpaid. Most of those sales went through. In all, MetroNews counted 652 parcels valued at $338,385 up for sale in the auctions in Raleigh, Monroe and McDowell counties.
Governor Justice has pushed back on media coverage of the financial conflicts, saying he is not directly involved in the family businesses any more and that situations that seem dire at first may be worked out ultimately.
The governor ended an administration news conference last week by referring to recurring questions about the financial situations as “fake news.”
“If it gets to the point in time when things are totally absurd and totally ridiculous, fake news stuff and everything, and it just goes on and on, won’t stop and everything, then we’ve got to go in a different direction,” he said. “But I’ll be fair as a human being can be.”
