Golden Green Hotel Faces Uncertain Future Following Fire

At 7:40 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2023, first responders were called to a four-alarm fire at Golden Green Hotel off Independence Boulevard in east Charlotte. Smoke bellowed out of the windows of the historic eight-story hotel as residents, travelers and employees filed out the front. 

Independence Boulevard was closed off while seven people were assessed at the scene with non-life-threatening injuries. One person was taken to a nearby hospital with minor injuries. The Charlotte Fire Department claimed the fire was started by “carelessly discarded smoking materials,” but didn’t rule out some sort of electrical failure. 

The fire may have spelled the end for an establishment that has a rich history in Charlotte that goes largely unknown. As we wait to see how or if the Golden Green Hotel will come out of this latest struggle, let’s go back to the beginning. 

Before it was known as the Golden Green Hotel, the recognizable highrise near what is now Bojangles Coliseum was known as the Coliseum Downtowner Motor Inn. Local historian Tom Hanchett can’t exactly pinpoint when the tower was built, but it is believed to be in the mid- to late-1960s. 

The construction is thought to be part of the second phase of an earlier low-rise motel called The Coliseum Motor Court, which opened around 1955 at 3016 Independence Blvd, which according to QCity Metro, changed their name from Motor Court to Motor Inn in 1967. 

The property was owned by Dwight L. Phillips (1906-1973), a locally known Charlotte developer who also briefly owned what is now The Dunhill Hotel at 237 N Tryon Street. Dwight’s surname can be seen all over the city to this day, including at Phillips Place, The Phillips Complex at UNCC and other locations. 

Phillips’ company bought more than 200 homes in the 1940s and was responsible for building the Chantilly Shopping Center as well as Morningside and Briar Creek apartments.

The Coliseum Downtowner Motor Inn opened on July 17, 1969. The building was originally planned to have six floors but developers wanted 10-12 — they landed on eight. 

The hotel had 175 rooms, a banquet hall, three smaller meeting rooms and a four-story parking deck. The Four Flames Restaurant had a capacity of 225 people, while the nightclub, Aztec Lounge, had a capacity for 150 people. 

Elvis Presley stayed at the hotel in 1972 and 1976, famously renting out the entire eighth floor during one of his stays. 

By the mid-1970s, the hotel owner defaulted on its loans and sold the property to Direction Management Corporation (DMC), which spent around $250,000 to renovate the hotel. They renamed it Century Coliseum. Within a year, DMC was defunct. 

Around 1978, the hotel was reopened as the Best Western Coliseum andSchuler’s Restaurant replaced the Four Flames. Aztec Lounge remained, regularly hosting popular disco parties. 

By the end of the 1980s, the hotel was again in financial disarray, and the owners put it up for sale. 

Fred Lawing enters the picture

It stayed on the market until 2007 when Fred Lawing, a local business owner and local developer who had been in the local real estate business for more than 40 years, bought the property. Records show he spent more than $700,000 renovating and refurbishing the structure. 

Lawing told QCity Metro, “In Europe, you see old buildings right beside new ones. They refurbish their old buildings, and they keep their history, but Americans will make a parking lot and start over again.”

Now 81, Lawing was originally from Concord and served in the Coast Guard from 1963 to ’67, stationed in California, Hawaii, and New Jersey. He also spent time at Barber-Scotia College in Concord, which was originally founded as a Presbyterian seminary for women in 1867, becoming one of the first colleges for African Americans after the Civil War, then became coed In 1956.  

In September 2012, Lawing befriended a guest who had asked where he could find some good vegan food. A vegan himself for nearly a decade at that point, Lawing joined the man across Independence Boulevard at Bean Vegan Cuisine, where they bonded over their shared Coast Guard experience. 

Lawing didn’t recognize the man, who eventually identified himself as Beau Bridges, actor in movies such as Jerry Maguire, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Hotel New Hampshire, and more than 200 other film and TV roles. Other famous guests at the hotel include Tony Shalhoub (Monk), Wayne Knight (Seinfeld), Tim Daly (Wings), Patricia Arquette and John Leguizamo. 

I arrived in Charlotte in 2006 and since moving to east Charlotte’s Windsor Park neighborhood in 2015 have driven by the Golden Green Hotel nearly every day. Most Charlotteans who regularly take Independence Boulevard have likely seen the large sign on the side of the hotel that reads “Be Vegan.” 

Personally, I’ve been vegetarian for close to 10 years and it’s always seemed like a bold statement beaming off of the longstanding hotel. Many people still refer to it as “the vegan hotel.” 

In a joint response to a question I posed about the sign, Lawing and his business partner Si Blake wrote, “We are a vegan hotel, a green hotel. The partners of Golden Green Hotel are vegans – [This] means observing a plant-based diet. Being vegan is compassion, is peace, is ecological, is economical, and is healthy.”

The co-owners added that, upon creating their partnership, they wanted to run an establishment that reflected their shared beliefs. The two took extensive measures to be environmentally conscious, implementing practices that conserve water and energy. 

In the bathrooms, for example, they replaced 3.2-gallon-per-flush toilets with fixtures that used only .8 gallons per flush, saving 340,000 gallons of water per year, they said. They also added in-room dispensers for soap, shampoo and other amenities, eliminating the need for nearly 100,000 plastic single-use amenity bottles from entering landfills each year. 

Loving Hut and the Quan Yin story

In 2019, the hotel welcomed a vegan restaurant called Loving Hut, a franchise which includes over 200 locations spread across 35 countries.

Loving Hut as founded in 2008 by Ching Hai, also known by her followers as Supreme Master Ching Hai. Her meditation movement, launched about 20 years prior, is known as Guanyin Famen or Quan Yin Buddhism, and was banned in China due to reported anti-communist political activity and alleged fraud. 

In 2017, Guanyin Famen was designated as a “dangerous group” by the China Anti-Cult Network, a digital platform run by China’s State Council. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton’s campaign returned $640,000 in donations from the group’s followers, calling the donation “suspicious.” 

To be initiated into Quan Yin, followers must make a life-long commitment to a vegan diet, adherence to the Five Precepts of Buddhism and at least two hours of meditation daily. 

The Five Precepts include abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech and intoxicants. A shorter form of initiation requires a half-hour of meditation daily and abstinence from meat for 10 days each month. 

The World Religions and Spirituality Project has written: “Ching Hai’s teaching against violence towards animals is very similar to Sikhism, but her meditation teachings resemble Buddhism, and her Catholic background enables her to incorporate Christian Biblical teachings as well.” 

Blake, who worked as general manager of Golden Green Hotel until its closing in 2023, says she’s been a follower of Hai’s for around 30 years, dating back to 1992 in China, where she was born and raised. 

With a Masters degree in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Illinois from Chicago, Blake worked in information technology and computer science in the US for 20 years following her graduation. She then decided to follow her passion by going into business with Lawing in 2007.

Lawing said he’s a Christian, first and foremost, but remains open-minded about world religions. He considers himself a follower of the Quan Yin method of meditation, and respects the movement as a fellow vegan. 

In many of the 250 Loving Hut restaurants across the world, televisions are turned to a broadcast of “Supreme Master TV,” which broadcasts 24 hours of positive news, seven days a week. Adherents and employees aren’t known to proselytize to you, only to focus on serving customers with kindness. 

Despite its designation by the Chinese government, California State University, Sacramento anthropology professor Liam D Murphy says the movement is not a “cult” but rather a “new religious movement.” Others have coined these types of movements as cybersects due to their proliferation and popularity in online forums. 

Other transnational Chinese cybersects include Falun Gong, a far right group known for launching Epoch Times and Shen Yun, and other groups such as Zhong Gong and Eastern Lightning. 

Respected members of the local vegan community including Julia Simon, previously of Nourish, and Scott Wishart of Lunchbox Records have sung the praises of Loving Hut, stating that they were disappointed to see it close in 2022.

“Si and Fred were always avid supporters of the vegan scene, donating food and funds to various Vegfest fundraisers and often coming out to community events,” said Simon. “Alas, the instability of COVID hit before they could really get into a flow and they never seemed to quite recover. For me, having an outpost of the global vegan restaurant chain open here meant we were continuing to grow and thrive as a vegan-friendly city.”

Lawing cited staffing issues and general upkeep for the closure. Locally owned vegan pop-up Dawg’On Vegans operated out of the space until the hotel’s closure after the fire. 

Lawing said he hopes to retire soon, but would like to see Golden Green Hotel reopen first. While he’d also like to open a new vegan cafe in the old Loving Hut space, the insurance process has dragged on for months, making it hard for him to move forward with anything. 

Read more: Photo of MLK in Charlotte Highlights Three Generations of Local History

He fears that the hotel will need to be sold as-is, and hopes someone will take on the project to rejuvenate it for future generations to enjoy. 

As of 2020, the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (NC DNCR) has taken the stance that Golden Green Hotel is not eligible for the National Register for preservation purposes, stating that it doesn’t meet the two requirements needed: “1: the property must have, or have had, information to contribute to our understanding of human history or pre-history, and 2) the information must be considered important.” 

“Opened in 1969, the Downtowner at the Coliseum is unlikely to contribute significant information pertaining to building technology or historical documentation not otherwise accessible from other extant resources and written records,” the agency ruled.

In the spirit of recycling and rebuilding, as opposed to Charlotte’s history of demolishing and renovation, here’s to hoping we can see a positive rebirth to the property at 3024 E.  Independence Blvd.