Farewell to the last of the Continental Inn as conference center is demolished

The Continental Inn was undoubtedly Lexington’s most colorful hotel, hosting the most varied assortment of characters.

The storied motel’s final piece, a conference center area, was demolished last week. What happens to the land now is in the hands of the 1540 Eastland Parkway LLC, the group headed by businessman Clay Green who bought the remaining Continental Inn property for $2.7 million in September from a group headed by Lexington businessman Jerry Lundergan.

The front of the property, a separate parcel with a New Circle Road address, is already the new Infiniti of Lexington auto dealership. Green Property Holdings bought that chunk of property in October 2015 for $2.2 million.

Green could not be reached for comment.

But Loys Mather, president of Eastland’s neighborhood association, said the neighborhood was encouraged by what it’s seen so far: “They put in a classy little dealership there and they’ve done a nice job. I can’t believe they’ll put something in there that’s going to detract from that.”

Built for $2 million in 1965 at what was then the edge of Lexington proper and lined with wrought-iron Mediterranean style, the Continental Inn was always a bit over the top, hosting Elvis conventions and psychic fairs and square dancing conventions. The Rotary Club met there for years, too, and in 1976 then-California governor Ronald Reagan presented the group’s high school academic awards to Lexington students.

Actor Lee Majors learned to drive an 18-wheeler in the parking lot there while filming the movie “Steel” (1979) at the Kincaid Towers. Country singer Jerry Reed, big in the 1970s and 1980s for the “Smokey and the Bandit” movie series, also stopped by.

If you were seeking a tattoo expo or regional darts tournament in Lexington and didn’t know where it might wind up, the smart bet was always the Continental Inn, which covered just under six acres with 319 rooms and a pool with a lit-up Statue of Liberty replica peering over.

Mason County basketball fans used to take over the hotel every time the team wound up in the state tournament.

In 2002, a guest described the Continental Inn as serviceable and full of nice people but “definitely not the Ritz.”

The property saw a series of scandals. In 1984, a professor at what was then Cumberland College (now the University of the Cumberlands) was kidnapped at gunpoint from the hotel parking lot and later found safe in the trunk of a car in Dayton. In 1992, a man was charged with murder in connection with a shooting in room 154. A Lexington first-grade teacher was charged with prostitution after being arrested setting up a three-way at the hotel in 2000.

In 1984, Jerome Jernigan, the man accused of kidnapping Wallace Wilkinson, a businessman who would later become Kentucky’s governor, was found dead at the Continental Inn. Jernigan had kidnapped Wilkinson from his office and ordered him to get hold of $500,000 cash. Jernigan died of heart disease and never came to trial.

The Continental Inn has been closed since 2005, but the 13-acre site had been slow to redevelop before the Infiniti development up front.

A psychic asked to read the inn’s spirit at a psychic fair in 2002 said that it was haunted by the friendly spirit of a man named Don who had an interest in food service.

Whether Don’s spirit departed with the final piece of the Continental could not be determined.

This story was originally published October 24, 2016 at 11:47 AM with the headline "Farewell to the last of the Continental Inn as conference center is demolished."