Since that time there has been talk of many possible buyers of the hotel. It reminded the community that 28,000 square feet were vacant and decaying, except for the store fronts on Main Street. In 1998 the matching tower of the Newberry Hotel, which had been closed in the 1950s, was like a sore thumb sticking up on the corner of Caldwell and Main Street. The Newberry Opera House was renovated and reopened in 1998, ushering in two decades and counting of renewal in downtown Newberry.

Both buildings and their towers were emblematic of a time of recovery and renewal in the history of Newberry County. Visitors who came to the Opera House needed a place to stay. The architect deliberately tied them together with the two towers. This version of the hotel with the corner spire was built in 1878 after a fire destroyed an older hotel on the property. The Newberry Opera House was built in 1881.

If you stand on the square in Newberry and look around, you can see two towers on two historic and iconic Newberry buildings, the Newberry Opera House and the Old Newberry Hotel.

Newberry opera house pictures