ROUNDING THE BEND past the guard gate, I catch my breath when I spy the Greenbrier resort’s main building. The Georgianstyle structure, wedding-cake white and six stories high, looms above f lower-speckled grounds that cover 7,000 acres and include cottages, five golf courses, tennis courts, and hiking and bridle trails. This posh estate was established in 1778 in White Sulphur Springs, Virginia (now West Virginia), around a natural hot spring (though the main building wasn’t built until 1858 and since has been expanded). Five presidents stayed here before the Civil War and famous guests since then have included President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, and a whole roster of industrial barons—including Vanderbilts, Fords, and du Ponts—who regularly spent their summers here.
But one chapter of this majestic hotel’s history is lesser known— during World War II, diplomats from enemy Axis countries were interned here. And after they left, the hotel became an active wartime military hospital. There
