A Son’s Vision

After failing health forced him to retire, Mr. Love sold his beloved White House in 1971. It would mark the beginning of the end of the Hotel’s reign as queen of the Coast, as she passed through a rapid succession of financially-strapped owners. In March of 1988, her once gracious doors were finally nailed shut under a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, sadly accompanied by a "For Sale" sign.

With her stately Corinthian columns now cracked and fading, her lovely grounds choked with tall weeds, and her elegant guests replaced by only an occasional vandal or vagrant, the fate of the White House seemed uncertain in 1989 as the Hotel sat like a boarded-up ghost overlooking the Gulf.

But miraculously, an old friend would surface that same year to rescue the Grand Lady. He had spent nearly every summer there as a boy, and had fallen in love with her just like his dad did. The son was determined to save this gracious landmark, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, along with the glorious heritage that the White House Hotel had brought to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.

In 1989, James S. Love, III would borrow $700,000 from the People's Bank to buy the deteriorating old hotel that his father, Jimmie Love, Jr., had sold almost twenty years earlier. Yet despite the son's vision for an approaching new millennium's extraordinary opportunities, it would literally take love to begin bringing the White House
back to luxurious life.