Qualla: The Omni Homestead Resort

The Omni Homestead Resort: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tokyogirl79, CC BY-SA 4.0. Thomas Bullitt put up a lodge on this site in 1766, when the Allegheny ridges were still considered frontier and the colonies were nine years away from a revolution. Vacationers have been coming to soak in the springs ever since - twenty-three of them eventually U.S. presidents. The mountain has been a recreation ground, a wartime detention site, the birthplace of southern skiing, and one of Sam Snead's longest professional addresses. The white-columned hotel that stands at Hot Springs, Virginia today is the third or fourth iteration of itself, depending on how you count the additions and the fires.

Image: Tokyogirl79 | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Omni Homestead Resort: Bullitt's Lodge to Morgan's Hotel

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Own work by Sammy76, Public domain. Bullitt's 1766 lodge was a modest affair, drawing guests up the rough mountain roads to take the geothermal waters of Hot Springs - the largest hot springs in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The modern resort traces to 1888-1892, when a group of investors led by J. P. Morgan bought...

Image: Own work by Sammy76 | Public domain

The Omni Homestead Resort: The Wartime Detention

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Ninjaneer, CC0. From December 1941 to June 1942, in the months after Pearl Harbor pulled the United States into World War II, the Homestead held 785 Japanese diplomats and their families. They were not, in any meaningful sense, free to leave. The U.S. government had taken Japanese diplomatic per...

Image: The Ninjaneer | CC0

The Omni Homestead Resort: Where the FAO Was Born

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Ninjaneer, CC0. In 1943, while the world's most significant war ground on, the Homestead hosted a United Nations conference that established the foundations of the Food and Agriculture Organization - the FAO, the U.N. agency that has shaped global food policy ever since. The choice of venue made...

Image: The Ninjaneer | CC0

The Omni Homestead Resort: Sam Snead's Course Record

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Ninjaneer, CC0. Sam Snead, the PGA Tour champion who won 82 official PGA events - a record that stood until Tiger Woods tied it - lived in or near Hot Springs his entire life. He served as the Homestead's golf pro for decades, his white straw hat a familiar sight on the Cascades. In 1983, at the...

Image: The Ninjaneer | CC0

The Omni Homestead Resort: Ski Resort, Spa, and the Renovation

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Ninjaneer, CC0. Sepp Kober opened the Homestead's ski area in 1959. It was the first alpine ski resort in Virginia and helped earn Kober his nickname of "the Father of Southern Skiing." The ski hill is small by Vermont or Colorado standards - 40 skiable acres, 700 feet of vertical, 10 runs, a si...

Image: The Ninjaneer | CC0