The Accidental Expert
Dr. Robert Conte talks about his 43-year career as The Greenbrier’s Historian
Story by Greg Johnson
Portraits by Mary Baldwin
Elvis has left the building. After 43 years as The Greenbrier’s official historian, Dr. Robert Conte, who literally wrote the book on the resort and often served as its knowledgeable public face, has retired.
For more than four decades Dr. Conte’s personal history has meshed with the fabled history of his employer. The California native arrived in Monroe County, West Virginia, in the 1970’s armed with youthful optimism, a Ph.D. in American Studies from Case Western Reserve, and a slender resume that included a year of work at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. He planned to pursue a back-to-the-land lifestyle, but he quickly discovered that (a) he didn’t know enough about farming, and (b) his meager bank account wasn’t going to support the life of a country squire. He thought about opening a bookstore in Lewisburg, but he needed a day job.
He applied for a job at The Greenbrier, expecting to work at the front desk. As luck would have it, his doctorate and experience at the National Archives caught the eye of General Manager Bill Pitt, who called him in for an interview. Pitt explained that the hotel’s attic contained 15 rolling canvas laundry carts piled high with archival materials and miscellaneous bric-a-brac that had been accumulating forever. He hired him at $4.50 an hour, told him to dress well and gave him his infamous job description. “Do whatever it is that historians do,” he charged him. Conte rolled the laundry carts to an empty cottage and began his research/archeological dig.
The young historian never really set out to become the greatest living expert on The Greenbrier and its predecessor resorts, which date back to 1778, but as time went on that’s exactly what happened. As his role and his salary expanded, he found himself giving public tours, lunching with media representatives, doing on-camera interviews and penning “The History of The Greenbrier: America’s Resort”, a definitive, colorful volume that has sold well over 100,000 copies since its 1989 publication. His comfortable, smiling presence, endless trove of knowledge and talent as a raconteur turned Dr. Conte, Dr. Bob or Doc, as he is variously known, into one of the resort’s popular amenities.
As it turned out, 1989 was a watershed year for Bob Conte: it was also the year he married Betsy Powers, who had moved to the area the previous year to work as the resort’s Director of Social Activities. Their July wedding took place in front of The Greenbrier’s historic Springhouse, and their reception was held in the Presidents’ Cottage Museum.
Fast-forward 32 years. After working together amiably for over three decades, in 2021 the couple decided it was time to retire to their Monroe County home. Their new job description, “Doing whatever it is that retirees do”, will include travel, spending time with their four children and granddaughter, and pursuing their personal interests.
We sat down with Dr. Conte, Bob to his friends, on a beautiful fall afternoon, to talk about his exceptional life, his 43-year run as, very possibly, the only full-time resort historian on the planet, and The Greenbrier’s evolution over the years.
GVQ: We know you can talk for hours about The Greenbrier, but let’s start by talking about you. Tell us about your background.
RC: I grew up in San Jose, California, before it was Silicon Valley. My father came back from World War II, got a job at the Post Office and worked there for the next 30 years. My mother was a nurse. I was one of five children, and the others are still in California. My Uncle Phil was the family’s big success story. He went to Santa Clara University and he majored in history. He was a football star; he played in the Sugar Bowl. He became a teacher and then a high school principal. That was about as high as I could imagine anyone climbing in life. I wanted to be like Uncle Phil, so I went to Santa Clara University and majored in history.
GVQ: And you played in the Sugar Bowl, too.
RC: No, but I’ve got an interesting NFL story from The Greenbrier I’ll tell you later.
GVQ: What did you do after you finished college?
RC: Like many young men in 1969, I was drafted and I went to Viet Nam. My saving grace was typing. I’m forever grateful that mother had made me take a summer course in typing. I made sure they knew I had that skill and I ended up in an office job, which beat being in the jungle. When I came back, I had the GI Bill. I remembered reading about a program called American Studies, and it sounded like all you did was read comics and smoke dope. It seemed like a good deal, so I applied to five schools and I was accepted at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. Needless to say, the program wasn’t what I imagined.
GVQ: So you set out to read comics and smoke dope and you ended up becoming Dr. Robert Conte, the eminent historian?
RC: Something like that. My dissertation was about how interpretations of American History have changed over time. Once you have a Ph.D., they assume you’ll be a scholar and a professor. I thought I would teach somewhere, but I ended up working at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in a project supported by a grant. Like all grants, it ran out, and my brilliant academic career was failing to materialize. A lot of guys had gotten advanced degrees to avoid the draft, and there seemed to be an oversupply of bearded guys with briefcases looking for work.
GVQ: What brought you to West Virginia?
RC: A Washington Post article about homesteading. The writer interviewed several people in Monroe County and it sounded like an interesting place. Later, by chance, I saw an ad in the paper for a rental house in Monroe County. I was married by then, and on a lark my wife and I decided to check it out. The house wasn’t much, but Monroe County was beautiful, the locals were friendly and there were all these folks with fascinating stories who’d moved there from other places. We found another house and we made the move. I quickly discovered that even if your rent is just $100 a month, you’ve got to pay it.
GVQ: Which is how The Greenbrier enters the story?
RC: Right. I applied expecting some kind of front desk job. As luck would have it, I was interviewed by Jack Horton, who turned out to be a big history buff. People with Ph.D.’s in history don’t apply there every day, and I guess he told the General Manager, Bill Pitt, about me. Pitt called me in, took me up to the attic in the Virginia Wing, showed me all the laundry carts and offered me $4.50 an hour to sort through them. He didn’t realize I was so desperate for a job I would have taken even less. He told me to wear a coat and tie, told me where lunch was served, and told me to “Do whatever it is that historians do.” That’s when I realized that I could get away with a lot.
GVQ: So you had to create your own job and figure out how to make yourself indispensable?
RC: Exactly. That was 1978. For the first year I worked in isolation, going through all these piles of stuff in one of the empty cottages. I don’t think anyone knew I was there. Then in 1979 we hosted the Ryder Cup and I had to work on the program and write about the history of golf at The Greenbrier. Golf was never played in our family and I didn’t know anything about it, but I ended up giving a slide presentation to the European team. That was the beginning of my life as a public figure instead of a hermit in a cottage. From then on, I was trotted out to tell the story of the hotel to groups and reporters. I never knew I had any ability as a public speaker, but before long I was giving regular tours and throwing in jokes like I’d been doing it all my life. I wore a 3-piece white linen suit like Tom Wolfe, one of my favorite writers. I actually had the opportunity to meet Wolfe through a friend who’d had him as a student at Washington & Lee. We met him in Blacksburg and had lunch with him. He looked exactly like you’d think Tom Wolfe would: white suit, blue shirt, white tie. I was totally starstruck. I thought if I dressed that way I’d look more like an historian, but I was teased mercilessly by my coworkers.
GVQ: When we interviewed Carleton Varney for this magazine, he said Joan Crawford told him, “Carleton, I invented me and you can invent you.” It sounds like you were in a similar situation. Nobody knew what an historian was supposed to be and you had to create a public persona.
RC: When they asked me what I wanted on my name tag and I said Dr. Robert Conte, I didn’t realize the effect it would have. People treated me with a certain deference that I came to appreciate and enjoy. Everybody started calling me Dr. Conte or Doc.
GVQ: Tell us about your evolution from lecturer to bestselling author.
RC: I never knew how long the job would last, but as I learned more about the history of The Greenbrier, I definitely wanted to write a book about it while I was still around. I did research at the Library of Congress, the Virginia Historical Society and WVU. When my first marriage unraveled, I didn’t have any reason to hurry home in the evenings, so from the mid-to-late 1980’s I would sit in my office until 9, working on the book. It came out in 1989.
GVQ: Sounds like it was your therapy.
RC: It probably was. The creation of that book is one of the things I’m most proud of.
GVQ: Did you have any dealings with Ted Gup, the Washington Post reporter who outed the Bunker in 1992?
RC: Yes. I knew something serious was going on when Ted Kleisner, our president and CEO, came to my office. Ted never went to your office, you went to his. He said there was a reporter from the Post who was asking a lot of questions. He said, “He’s going to ask you what’s under the West Virginia Wing.” He told me what to say. So Gup comes in, puts a tape recorder on my desk and I follow the script and say what I’m supposed to say. Then I have an inspiration. Assuring him we have nothing to hide, I invite him to look through our archives. Unfortunately, he noticed some things on a diagram of the Exhibit Hall that I’d never noticed. He made a lot of detailed notes about the construction and jotted down the names of people who had worked on it. He went back to his room and started calling them. He told me later, “You provided some good information.” I said, “I certainly didn’t mean to!”
GVQ: How do you think he knew about the Bunker?
RC: He’d been researching the government’s Cold War Doomsday projects. He’d already written an article about the subject for Time magazine. I suspect someone he met in the government or the military who thought the Bunker was obsolete and a waste of taxpayers’ money tipped him off. He knew all about it before he got here. I’m sure he expected us to be in full denial mode, and we were.
GVQ: The revelation of the Bunker’s existence was obviously big news. What are some other milestones during your four decades at the hotel?
RC: I’d say there were two major ones: the development of the Sporting Club, which completely changed things, and the purchase of The Greenbrier by Mr. Justice, which rescued the resort when it could have gone out of business. 2008 was a disastrous year for us. There were labor issues and a lot of big groups had cancelled their reservations. We were losing millions and it seemed like we were on the verge of collapse. Marriott was pursuing a possible purchase of the hotel, but we didn’t know what that would mean. When Mr. Justice appeared on the scene it was a huge relief. He had a history with us; he’d been coming here since he was a kid and he had an emotional tie that Marriott wouldn’t have had. He added the casino, the chapel, the Sports Performance Center, the tennis stadium, the golf tournament. These past few years have been memorable ones.
GVQ: Has the clientele changed?
RC: You see a broader range of guests now. There are a lot more day visitors coming through and you see things you didn’t used to see. Carleton didn’t decorate the Trellis Lobby with biker groups in mind, but you don’t want to exclude people. Even 40 years ago people were saying the patrons weren’t dressing like they used to, but times change. Nowadays people don’t want to have to dress for dinner every night like they’re going to the prom. But through all the changes, the overwhelming sense of elegance and service has continued.
GVQ: Who are some of the celebrities you’ve met?
RC: Here’s where I get to tell my football story. When the New Orleans Saints were here, they had a scrimmage with the New England Patriots. The Pats were using part of the Exhibit Hall and Bunker, and when people kept referring to the Bunker, the players weren’t sure what they were talking about. Coach Bill Belichick thought it would be a good idea if someone explained the Bunker’s history to them, so they brought me in to give a little talk. I walked in the room and there was Tom Brady sitting in the front row and all the New England Patriots were staring at me. I thought, “I’m finally in totally over my head.” I gave a 15-minute presentation and then I turned to the coach and asked, “Is this what you wanted, Coach?” He said, “Perfect!” That’s still my favorite review.
GVQ: You’ve probably been exposed to a lot of star power over the years.
RC: I just missed giving a Bunker tour to Tom Cruise. I was about to start the tour when the power went off. I’d met a lot of well-known people by then, but he seemed like another level of celebrity. I was thinking, “Oh, my God, Tom Cruise - this is going to make a great story!” And then the lights went out and there went my story. Another time I was asked to speak to a big group, and when I got there Walter Cronkite sitting in the front row. I didn’t know he was the keynote speaker and I was his warmup act.
GVQ: Tell us about the most important person you met at The Greenbrier – your wife.
RC: Meeting Betsy was the number one highlight of my career, of course. She had a successful wardrobe consulting business in Charlotte and she’d come to the hotel a time or two to present her program. People were impressed by her and when the Director of Social Activities position opened up, they offered it to her. One of her roles as Director of Social Activities was giving tours, so I volunteered to give her a tour and help orient her.
GVQ: Hmm. Sounds suspicious.
RC: Let’s just say she’d caught my eye and made a definite impression. By way of explaining the larger subject of mineral springs, I took her over to Sweet Springs in Monroe County. We spent the whole day together, and when we got back to the hotel around seven, I said, “Let’s just have dinner in the main dining room.” The head of the dining room could tell something was going on because he gave us this little private table over to the side.
GVQ: Was it love at first sight?
RC: Totally. We were both coming off marriages that didn’t work out and we had a sense of comfort with each other. We got married 10 months later. I’d say it’s worked out pretty well – we’ve been together for 32 years.
GVQ: Tell us about your children.
RC: I have two children from my first marriage, Sam, who’s a registered nurse in Baltimore, and Daniel, who lives in Portland, Oregon. Sam and his wife, Elizabeth, have our only grandchild, Ramona, who’s 7. Daniel is our free spirit. He’s worked in New York City, Korea and Alaska. Betsy and I have two children, Nicholas and Mary Cecilia. They’re both graduates of Wake Forest. Nicholas and his longtime girlfriend, Aiden, live in Salt Lake City and he’s finishing law school there. Mary Cecilia has a master’s degree in linguistics from Gallaudet University. She recently married Francesco; they met when she was living in Bari, Italy, for three years. Oddly enough, that’s where the Conte family was from, and my grandfather was named Francesco. They were married at the Presbyterian Church in Union, and Betsy was in her element, overseeing all the details of the reception, which was at our place in Monroe County.
GVQ: It sounds like you’ve got an interesting family, to say the least. So how does a retired historian stay busy?
RC: I have a Facebook page called The Greenbrier History Group where I share photos and stories from the resort’s past, and I enjoy posting things and interacting with the people who read it. I’m still on three boards that I’ve been on for years: the Greenbrier Historical Society, the West Virginia Archives and History Commission, and the West Virginia Humanities Council. I’m sure they’ll find things for me to do. And Betsy and I hope to travel, something we’ve managed to do quite a lot of over the years. I feel really lucky to have fallen into my job at The Greenbrier. It ended up giving me an identity and a life I would never have had anywhere else. I’ve been told at least 860,000 times, “You must have the best job in the world.” I think I did.
