Timberlanes will be missed, customers say

By D.a. Wilkinson

Everyone went to the Timberlanes, local people recalled.

SALEM — Mayor Jerry Wolford said he hopes that someone will buy the Timberlanes.

He spoke Friday for many throughout the Mahoning Valley when he added, “I’m sorry to see they were closed up.”

The Timberlanes shut down with no warning Thursday. A sign on the door of the combination of restaurant, hotel and bar read, “We Are Closed. Thank You For Your Patronage.”

For decades, the Timberlanes drew hundreds of customers. Political rallies, meetings of all sorts, and private parties took place at the facility.

Columbiana County Prosecutor Robert Herron said, “It’s a blow to the community.”

People went to the Timberlanes for drinks or dinner or to wait for results on election night, he added. Herron said of the closing, “There’s a sense of loss to the community.”

The facility is the only hotel in the city. And though there are number of restaurants here, the Timberlanes was at the top for many decades.

James Carlini of Salem said he had just read about the closing in a newspaper.

“My uncle and aunt used to come up from Virginia and always stayed there,” Carlini said.

The couple picked the Timberlanes, he said, because of the excellent food and the fine accommodations.

Roy Paparodis, the son of founder Odess “Soph” Paparodis, sold the business that went through some rocky legal times.

The Timberlanes went into receivership in April 2008 under an order by Judge David Tobin of common pleas court.

Ciena Capital Funding, a New York mortgage bank, had filed the action against the restaurant and hotel at 544 E. Pershing St.

Crescent Hotels and Resorts of Fairfax, Va., has been running the facility.

There was talk of not-so-great food at the Timberlanes in recent times. But Lois Gall of the county elections board said that she had been at a function recently at the facility and the food was excellent.

Herron said that before Christmas, he went to a 1 p.m. lunch meeting at the restaurant. There was only one table being used at the time.

Wolford said the city, right now, is unlikely to help find a buyer for the Timberlanes.

The hotel paid a bed tax to the city that in part funds the city’s tourism board.

City Auditor James Armeni said the tourism board has about $17,500 in bed-tax receipts in its appropriations but shouldn’t expect more because of the tight economy — and the Timberlanes closing.

David Schwartz of the tourism board acknowledged there won’t be any more bed-tax money for a while.