The Afton Inn is shown in its heyday between 1890 and 1920. This photo was probably taken at the turn of the 20th century, when a special coach ferried guests back and forth between the hotel and the Front Royal train depot. Barriers now keep pedestrians away from the Afton Inn.

On Wednesday, Aug. 3, portions of the building were cordoned off after inspection by the Warren County Building Inspections Office.

"The building was declared an unsafe structure - it was not condemned as some rumors already circulating are saying," County Building Official Ira Neff said Friday. "It is my understanding that it is scheduled to go to closing for sale and is going to be re-engineered, re-shored and renovated."

Neff said the decision to officially declare the building unsafe came as part of routine follow up work he is doing after taking his position on July 5.

"It came as a result of follow up on a structural report that was issued before. In checking on the initial filing we found some bricks cracked and bowed out on the front of the building. It was done for public safety," Neff said of the decision to cordon off the East Main Street sidewalk at the Town of Front Royal's main intersection of Main Street and Royal Avenue along with the rear portion of the building.

Late local real estate broker Gary Olsen was forced to remove a large number of books from storage in the building due to structural issues raised by former town code official Jim Pitzvada in September 2002. The town no longer has a code official and is again dependent upon the county building code office for actions like that taken regarding the Afton Inn last week.

In 2002-03 the Afton Inn was owned by local developer Tito Howard, who later sold it to Peter Prypanis for $400,000. After his purchase Prypanis tore a rear addition of the building off due to what he said were structural issues and commented that while at the time he had no intention of raising the original structure it was going to require "a lot of work, a lot of work!" to save.

According to the town planning department Prypanis filed an application for permission to raise the remaining portions of the Afton Inn on July 5. However, that application was withdrawn within the last week prior to coming before the town board of architectural review as mandated by town codes with such requests involving historical structures.

On Friday real estate agent Irene Trivoulides confirmed that Prypandis is in the process of selling the Afton Inn to another Northern Virginia developer Frank Barros. Barros owns JSC Concrete Construction of Manassas Park. While Trivoulides could not discuss a prospective purchase price, she said the building had been listed for sale at $600,000.

Speaking for her father, Sandra Barros said the sale is scheduled for closing on Sept. 15. In the interim Frank Barros was planning to come to town several times, including last weekend, to assess the condition of the remaining Afton Inn structure.

Sandra Barros said she anticipates the sale going through and added that her father was not approaching the purchase blind to the building's condition. "He does a lot of commercial and residential work and thinks with his expertise he can accomplish what needs to be done. He wants to save it - his ultimate goal is to buy and restore the building.

"I don't want to say that's 100 percent because there is still a lot of work to do to determine the feasibility. It all really depends on what he finds out in the next couple of weeks," she said.

Following earlier meetings with the prospective buyer Warren Heritage Society Executive Director Patrick Farris confirmed this week that Barros' intention is to save the building.

"I am ecstatic that he intends to restore and rehabilitate the site," Farris said. Farris also credited the listing realty company, IMAX, for finding a client "who shares [the heritage society's] concern of saving the property."

Afton Inn was once a cultural center for Front Royal

Warren Heritage Society Executive Director Patrick Farris says that according to title searches conducted by Rebecca Good and verified by his office the main structure of the Afton Inn was completed in 1867 two years after the end of the Civil War. The rear addition, which has already been demolished, was completed in 1872. A surviving one-room front addition dates to the 1940s several decades after the building was at its cultural peak, Farris said.

"In ways that may not be generally appreciated today hotels were social centers of communities prior to the advent of movie theaters, radio and television," Farris explained. "The Afton Inn was easily the most prominent hotel in the Town of Front Royal from the time of its construction until the 1920s." Farris traced the height of the hotel's historic prominence from the 1890s to the 1920s.

"If you look at the structures surviving and constructed in close proximity to the Afton Inn, you have prominent churches, there was an earlier bank at the site of the newer BB&T building next door and the Warren County Courthouse. So, you have religious, financial and governmental centers there - the Afton Inn was the social center of that grouping," Farris said.

"In addition to serving as the most prominent hotel specific to people traveling to Front Royal it served as a meeting place for a number of local social organizations including Rotary and Confederate veterans' groups which met there for decades after the Civil War.

"When traveling theater or musical groups came to the area looking for places to perform the Afton Inn was that place to a great extent. It had a very important place in Front Royal and Warren County society," Farris said of the building's historical import to Front Royal.

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