Jay and Denise Hartz officially take ownership of the Hotel Pattee today, marking a significant step in a journey that began a year ago.

Perry Mayor Jay Pattee says he first heard of the St. Louis, Missouri area couple when they sent him a letter last fall.

“At that time the hotel was for sale for over two million dollars… and he just looked at it, he thought that it looked like a very interesting place so he and his wife, actually all that time ago Jay and Denise Hartz came to Perry and visited the Hotel Pattee and like so many of us they fell in love with the place, I mean it’s just hard not to” says Pattee.

But the more than $2 million price tag just wasn’t feasible for the Hartzes so they left Perry, but left a business card with the Mayor.

Fast forward a year, this time it was Pattee that was reaching out.

“I called Jay Hartz and told him ‘You’re not going to believe this, but the hotel shut down abruptly’, and the price is probably going to drop some because the owner that had owned the hotel was out of the picture and I said ‘Maybe you’d like to come back and take another look.”

This time around, thanks to others in the area, the Hartzes were more successful.

“The thing I will say with the Hartzes is that they came in and got busy and laid down a plan with the help of locals to own the hotel with local support and I think that that’s probably what put them over the top financially” adds Pattee.

Mayor Pattee says if the couple markets the hotel half as well as they have marketed themselves to the community, there is a bright future ahead for Perry’s landmark hote.