The West Virginian winter wasn’t quite what my midwestern mind had imagined. In fact, it didn’t seem much like winter at all. The inches of snow, crisp, dry air, or cutting ice-cold wind was nowhere to be seen. It certainly appeared to me like I was plucked right out of a pile of raked leaves and sat down in the middle of Fall. I expected to see jack-o-lanterns as I gazed around the almost federal-looking resort I was booked to stay at for the next few days. Instead, it was ornately decorated for Christmas, like a Grand Palace welcoming influential members of society to a festive party. I had just arrived at America’s Resort – The Greenbrier. 

It was a marvel of sight when I first pulled into its winding entry road. Immediately upon crossing the threshold of its manned security gate, it was clear that you were in a place like few others. Every square inch of every lawn, hedge, road, and footpath seemed obsessively manicured and perfected. Not even a blade of grass was out of place. The hotel is an impressively monolithic building designed to put out an aura of grandeur and elegance. Sat in a valley within the Allegheny Mountains, everything about it made you feel comfortably secluded from any outside worry you could ever imagine. The inside was lavish as well. It was marvelously draped in floral patterns, glowing fireplaces, and large oil paintings of landscapes and famous people from history. When I first walked through the grand entryway and gave the receptionist my name, I couldn’t help but rubberneck around and take it all in. It was overwhelming. 

I arrived mid-afternoon, probably around 4:30, after driving the entire way from Missouri with only a few pit stops along the way, so by the time I had checked in, and followed the directions given to me to get to my room, and sat my bag down on my bed I was fed up with sitting, but exhausted from the drive. It was an odd state of mind to be in because I wanted to stretch my legs and set out into the resort to explore, but I wasn’t sure if my exhausted mind could retain anything I would see. So, I opted for a compromise. I walked down the hall to a small lounge I had passed on the way to my room, grabbed a glass of the complimentary champagne, and stared out the window at the freshly mowed lawns and swaying trees. 

The next day, I fell into a routine that would serve me well for the remainder of my time there. Wake up, wander into the lounge for coffee and breakfast, chat with other guests, and make my way out into the rest of the resort to explore and experience all the sights, sounds, and smells that were like brushstrokes making each room their own works of art. Then I’d go back to the lounge for lunch and a few drinks, head back out to explore some more, find a nice restaurant for dinner, and then finally return to the lounge once again for a few drinks before bed. I spent nearly a week roaming the resort’s hallways, peeking into sitting areas, and shops, and restaurants, yet I still got the sense that there were more secret nooks I never uncovered. Part of the reason, I suspect, that I didn’t see more was simple enough. Every single room looked like it was decorated by a different interior designer. Not in the way one decorates their living room differently than their bedroom or kitchen. No, each new doorway you passed through revealed expanses decorated more elaborate than the last. It was like flipping through a magazine of the fanciest rooms ever created. When you exhausted one room, you only needed to meander your way into the next for a new flavor of The Greenbrier. Actually, the entire decor is almost like an assault on your senses from the moment you enter the building. A lovely assault, but an assault all the same. It seemed like everyone I saw had their heads cocked one way or another, trying to catalog everything around them. 

That evening, after my first full day, I felt like I had tried to run a marathon in my head. As I sat in front of the fireplace in the lounge, letting the crackle of the burning logs massage my body and the martini in my hand decompress my mind, I truly began to relax and feel the significance of where I was. Nearly every piece of furniture and cosmetics that adorned the resort oozed out history. Even the lounge wallpaper was a 360-degree depiction of log cabins, cannon fire, pillared homes, and beautifully costumed people. Honestly, I wasn’t sure where to begin understanding someplace with so much going on. But almost as if The Greenbrier listened to me, it sent me someone who could help. A young-old man donning a magnificent tuxedo and long, greased-back gray hair strolled past me to refill the ice bucket he had undoubtedly done countless times that day. He seemed almost like a ghost, floating in and out of the room without anyone acknowledging his presence. From all outside appearances, he looked and acted professional but with a tinge of quirkiness buried ever so shallow. At that moment, I remembered something my grandfather told me when I was younger. If you really want to know what’s going on somewhere, you just have to ask the janitor. And while this worker wasn’t a janitor by the looks of him, I suspected my grandfather’s advice was still valid. I jumped from my armchair to pick his brain, perhaps too enthusiastically.

“Hey, uh, thanks for the ice.” I chimed. “You know, it’s actually my first night here, and I gotta be honest – I’m a bit overwhelmed.”

“Oh, yeah.” He replied understandingly. “It can be a lot.” 

“If you don’t mind me asking – how long have you worked here?”

“Hm, I don’t know. About fifteen years probably.”

“Man, you must have seen a lot in all that time.”

“Oh, you certainly see some interesting things, that’s for sure.”

“I bet. Say, what’s the story with the wallpaper in here?” 

He put down the ice bucket and looked around. “It’s something isn’t it. It’s actually a hand-painted mural about the history of The Greenbrier.” 

My mouth opened slightly, and I let out a soft “Ohhh.”

I could tell he was excited to talk about his knowledge of the resort, or maybe he was just happy to talk to someone. He led me around the room clockwise and explained what each piece of the painting portrayed. The first settlers discovering a natural spring in 1778, the first few permanent cottages (still standing today, he noted), the Civil War, all the way to the present day. Talking with him was nice. He offered me more information about the resort’s history than I could maintain. I would have needed a notepad. The man was a walking encyclopedia for The Greenbrier. And as he kept explaining and sensing that I was genuinely interested and not feigning it, he opened up more and more about what he knew. 

We had finally gone around the room and were back where we started when he peeled his eyes off the mural and turned his head towards me. “A lot more happened and probably happens here than I think most people realize.” 

“How do you mean?” I questioned.

“Presidents have stayed here, the royal family too. Pretty much anyone who’s anyone has slept in one of these rooms. Not to mention the bunker. Did you sign up for that tour? You should. You’ll learn a lot.”

I was fully aware of what he was talking about. Underneath the opulent compound I inhabited lies a Cold War-era nuclear bunker that Congress members would have holed up in if there were ever a nuke hurtling towards DC. Before it was publicly outed by a reporter in the 90’s, it was unknown to the public, even to the hotel workers. Honestly, it was one of the main reasons I wanted to go there in the first place. How often do you get the chance to see a genuine declassified top-secret bunker in person? 

We finished up our conversation and bid each other a good night before I finished my drink and went to sleep. 

The following day, I had secured a spot on the bunker tour in the afternoon. Signing up for the tour was far easier than actually finding where the tour began, however. I searched all over for it. It didn’t help that the building was like an ever-changing maze, only revealing new halls and passages after you had already passed by them two or three times. Every once in a while, I’d see a group of people pass me by with a determined walk and a pass hung around their neck. “Are they heading to the tour?” I thought, quickly followed by, “Shit, I don’t have one of those things. I wonder if I need one.” My curiosity clawed its way out, and I asked 

“Are you guys going on the bunker tour?”

I broke their power-driven walks, and their heads snapped around towards me. “No,” a blonde-haired woman said, “We are on a day visit to the resort. We’re just exploring.”

I sucked my teeth and responded, “Damn, I can’t seem to find it.” 

As I looked around, I heard her say, “Maybe it’s that way.” 

She was leaning her head to the right, looking past me, smiling kindly, and pointing towards a small sign that read ‘GREENBRIER BUNKER TOUR THIS WAY.’ If it was a snake, it would have bit me. 

Following the signs, I hurriedly tracked my way through a wing of the resort I’d never seen before like a regular Sherlock Holmes. Up a set of stairs that put the Grand Staircase of the Titanic to shame, I ran into a group of maybe 10 people standing in a flock. I was finally in the right place. Another 4 or 5 people came along leisurely after a few minutes of waiting, but then no one else came. I checked my watch – it was the time that the tour was supposed to begin. But there was no tour guide. We waited for another few minutes, and a jovial-looking man in a suit crested the staircase I had just climbed. He sauntered up to the group, welcomed us, and gave us some rules to follow. No cell phones in the bunker. If you had them, you’d have to leave them in the lockers outside. No cameras either. No bags of any kind. No handbags. No totes. No backpacks. No coin purses. I was damn surprised he didn’t say no pockets. Oh, and especially no weapons. Concealed carry permit or not. He made that very clear. I often wonder if rules are set because of a lawyer’s meticulous conjuring of worst-case scenarios, if they are implemented after an incident that makes it necessary. I couldn’t imagine that a bunker 70 feet underground had any cell service. And what was inside this bunker that couldn’t be photographed? What was so valuable that they couldn’t allow bags inside? I presume that these rules are there for good reason. But what the hell could be the reason?

With the finishing touches of his rules seminar applied, the tour guide asked if we had any questions, and when he was met with a stone-cold silence, the message was clear that we were ready to proceed. 

We were ushered past a giant metal hatch being propped open, the 28-ton blast door that would have been sealed up after all of the members of Congress entered. I wondered aloud how anyone would have been able to close it. The tour guide graciously answered my question by telling the group that the door only takes 50 pounds of pressure to move. If you’re having a hard time picturing just how heavy this nuclear-proofed door is, imagine this: it weighs more than a fully loaded garbage truck but can be closed by giving it a stiff push. Once I crossed the threshold separating luxury resort from top-secret bunker, the atmosphere altered into a cold, serious one. Gone were the ornate wallpapers, oil paintings, and rosy scents. They had been replaced by a staunch, pale room flooded by fluorescent lights. 

“This room,” the tour guide began, “was designed to be where many of the workers who supported Congress would have operated. Desks would have been set up for them to continue to work, even in the event of a nuclear strike.” 

What a bleak situation, I thought. Even if the world ended, those poor souls would’ve still had to show up to work their desk jobs. The tour guide had begun walking around the edge of the pillared room, explaining more about where we were. He told us that today, the room is used for car shows and other exhibits, but back when it was built, it would have been one of the main hubs for workers. It wasn’t a small room by any means. I’m guessing that at least a few hundred people could have been squeezed in there. He further explained that the bunker would have housed upwards of 1,100 people. This fact, upon reflection, made me realize how little of the bunker we actually saw. There must have been entire floors we never got close to inspecting. 

We were then led around to different hallways and rooms throughout the bunker, each accompanied by an expository speech from the tour guide explaining its significance. We started in the great white hall for the workers of the Congressmen, then made our way to where Congress would have carried out their duty of making important decisions for our country, even if it was blown halfway to hell. The chamber for the House of Representatives looked just like what you see on TV, although it was smaller than I expected. We didn’t get to see the Senate’s chambers, but the guide assured us it looked precisely the same. Then we walked down a narrow, well-lit hallway to the next room and speech. We saw the workers’ sleeping quarters, which were as bare-bones as they come. Uncomfortable metal bunk beds and small storage areas; I can’t say they would have lived in luxury. Although, compared to what would have been happening outside the bunker walls, this seems a much better option. As we went through more hallways, I noticed we passed metal doors with keycard scanners every few feet. My curiosity got the better of me, and I sped up to catch the tour guide’s ear. 

“What are all these fancy looking doors? I thought this place wasn’t in use anymore.”

Without breaking stride, he turned to me. “Well, most of the bunker is actually being leased by a company that hosts servers now.”

“Ah, I see… What kind of -” 

And before I could continue our conversation, he turned back to the group and exclaimed, “This way everyone! Our next stop is that doorway on our left!”

I passed a water fountain and rounded the corner into a small room with plastic chairs set up facing a projector screen. One by one, everybody in the group sat down in a chair and waited for our trusty guide to offer us more information on the bunker.

“So,” he began, “Before we get further along in the tour I am going to show you all a quick video about the history of the bunker.” 

And with that, a movie flashed onto the screen and began playing. It was like one of those dry, information-dense videos a high school teacher would put on during class when they didn’t want to lecture their students some days. While I sat there in the now darkened room, with everyone listening intently to the movie playing before us, a slight tickle began to itch its way up my throat. One of those tickles that really only happens when you are in a silent situation and your own body rebels against you just for laughs. It seemed cruel. I cleared my throat to see if I could fight back against the urge so I wouldn’t make a scene. It was no use. I knew a coughing fit was inevitable. I choked down my coughs and looked up at the tour guide, mouthing, “Can I get some water?” and pointed at the door. He met my gaze and nodded his head towards the exit. 

Once outside, I finally allowed my body to hack up a lung, trying to scratch the annoying tickle away, and got a few solid gulps of water in the hopes it wouldn’t come back. Finally, when I had recomposed myself, I started back towards the door to return to the group. But for some reason, I stopped before I reentered. I’m not sure if it was my curiosity or my inner conspiracy theorist, but I gingerly walked over to one of the many locked doors that apparently hosted important servers and attempted to peer inside. Just as I began to glance into the door’s porthole, I heard a door open and close behind me. I turned quickly, expecting to see the guide coming to check on me, but instead, I saw a youngish man with a white hard hat looking straight at me. 

He didn’t seem all that surprised that I was there and said, “How’s it going?” 

“Oh, I’m just on the bunker tour and came out to get some water during the movie.”

“Ok.” He nodded.

Almost immediately as he said that, the guide opened the door to invite me back inside because the movie was finishing up. 

I returned to my seat as our guide took his place at the front of the room, asking if the crowd had any questions. And questions I had, but not any I suspected our tour guide would answer even if he had them. As the group began hurling their queries to our guide, stuff like “When did the bunker become public knowledge?” and “Who knew it was being built?” I formulated my own questions. Why was it that we hadn’t seen any workers despite every other door we passed being used by this server company? Why was it that the only worker I did see was when I was unaccompanied? It felt an awful lot like I was being checked on. The worker didn’t seem interested in me being by myself, that’s for sure. I had more questions than anyone likely had answers. 

After the movie, we continued throughout the bunker, stopping in rooms that had been maintained since their construction back in the late 50s. We passed through the decontamination chambers where the occupants would have done the same when they first arrived. Then we were brought down a flight of cement stairs into what appeared to be a dark basement where our guide beckoned us to gaze upon a massive round furnace. And while it wasn’t used to heat the bunker, the guide explained, it would have been used to dispose of any waste that was accumulated if the bunker was put into use. Oh, and that’s where they would have gotten rid of the bodies of anyone who died in the bunker; grim. After about 90 minutes of poking in and out of rooms and listening to our guide explain the significance of each one, we entered the final room of the tour. The dining hall. It wasn’t nearly as big as I expected, either. More interestingly, though, the floor was made up of a tiled pattern like a tight checkerboard laid out across the room. I noticed that everyone in the group seemed antsier than before, and I felt a little uncomfortable myself. I assumed it was because of the long tour and too much information. Maybe I was getting bored, even though it felt different than that. 

“This is the main dining hall,” the guide announced, “This is where everyone would have eaten until they could leave the bunker. Now they use it to train pastry chefs.” 

“That would have been a lot of people to feed in this room.” A bearded man from the group chuckled. 

The guide nodded. “Yes, well that’s why they made this floor pattern. It was designed to make sure people didn’t stay too long.” 

It certainly seemed to work. I was ready to leave. And pretty much as soon as we stepped out back into the exhibit room, the almost characterless architecture felt more welcoming than it had before. The checkerboard had had the intended effect. Still, it is easy to see that the bunker was built almost entirely with function in mind rather than fashion. It starkly contrasts the rest of the Greenbrier’s garish nature, almost like stepping into a full white-out snowstorm from an art museum. By the time we had been led back to the blast door, we first passed through, I was good and ready to return to the lavish resort. The bunker left me with an odd feeling. I saw more than I had initially expected, but at the same time felt like I didn’t get to see anything at all. Like they didn’t want anyone wandering too far into the compound.

Back in the lounge by my room, I found myself once again staring out the window. It was soothing to look out onto the resort’s grounds. It was almost like a palate cleanser between flavorful meals. The outdoors has always calmed me down, though. Trees swaying, leaves dancing, moonlight draping the ground in a silver glow. These are the things that recenter me. This evening, I had taken to watching one particular grove of pines ebb and flow in the twilight until I heard my friend’s now familiar footsteps and clanking of ice from the night before. I turned around from the window when I heard him come in and went over to chat with him.

“Hey, I went on that bunker tour. It’s pretty amazing to see it all in person.”

“Yeah, it’s weird isn’t it?”

“I don’t understand how they kept it a secret from everybody. How did nobody at the hotel notice?” I pondered, “Maybe they explained it in the video, but I had to step out for a second.”

He had an answer, as I suspected he would. “Well they just told everybody that they were building an exhibit hall over there, which is sort of true, I guess. People would walk in and out and not even know they were in the bunker. Some people suspected there was something going on but most just thought it wasn’t unusual for them to be doing construction. They didn’t really try to hide it, they just built it and nobody asked.”

“I got the feeling they are still playing their cards pretty close to their chest.”

“You got no idea”

“Really?” I inquired.

He leaned in a bit. “Well, I can’t prove anything for sure. But…” he leaned closer again, talking more hush than before, “After 9/11, when everything was still pretty crazy, some of the catering workers said they were bringing full meals down there and leaving them. Then a few hours later they would come back and take the empty carts back to the kitchen.”

“No shit? Who do you think was staying down there?”

He shrugged. “Not sure. Could have been some Congress members. Could have been anyone I suppose. Personally, though, I think it was the vice president.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Well, like I said, I can’t prove anything. Just a feeling.”

I leaned on the back of the leather couch behind me. “Makes me wonder what else is hidden here.”

He began picking up a tray of empty glasses from the refreshment table and turned back towards me. “You heard about the fake tree?”

“Fake tree?” 

“Yeah. There’s a radio tower on the grounds that looks like a tree. They said it’s so there’s better cell service out here, but I think it’s probably connected to those servers in the bunker.” 

“Where’s it at?” 

“Well I can’t tell you that. That would ruin the fun of trying to find it wouldn’t it?”

“I guess you’re right. I’ll keep an eye out for the next couple of days.”

He nodded, straightened himself a bit, and left with the tray.

The next few days, I crammed in as many activities as possible. I wanted the full Greenbrier experience. I went trap shooting, hiking, horse carriage riding, and had plenty of drinks and conversations with the rest of the guests that hung around the many lounges. But always in the back of my mind were two things. Just how odd the bunker made me feel, and the conspiracies of my new friend. You see, I love a good conspiracy theory. I’m not saying I believe all or even most of them, but I find them interesting nonetheless. The Greenbrier seemed like a theorist’s dream location, but despite this, I didn’t find anything online about any sort of conspiracies connected to the place. Yet they have hidden radio towers, a declassified bunker, locked rooms supposedly filled with servers, and enough history to concoct any number of zany narratives. The idea that maybe nothing was what it seemed festered in my head for days until I began questioning whether more was happening than anyone suspects. And maybe, I thought, if I found that hidden phony tree, I could uncover some kind of deep plot about it all. Unfortunately, I wasn’t given much to go on. Just that there is a radio tower, disguised as a tree, somewhere on the grounds. And the grounds are pretty extensive. Still, I spent my last days there peering out of windows and walking the grounds when the weather permitted in search of this tree. Before I knew it, it was my final day, and I hadn’t uncovered it, much less any odd goings on indicative of secret covert actions. 

 By then, my mind was a soupy mess from the stimulants of The Greenbrier. The constant smells and sights and sheer extravagance of everything gave me a kind of brain fog. Don’t get me wrong, though; it is an extremely relaxing place. Having the sense that everything is taken care of – the sense that all of your worries from the outside world don’t matter there – makes you feel a little like a kid on a snow day. But with that relaxation comes a certain dread deep down when the end of your stay approaches. You know the worries of real life aren’t that far away. Because of this, I made sure to be extra busy on the last day. I didn’t want to spend my waning hours there moping around like Eeyore. And sure enough, I suppressed the thought of my impending departure for many hours. I spent the day wandering, and tasting, and absorbing as much of everything as I could, but the thought of this place being a smoke screen for covert operations was always in the back of my mind. By 9:00 PM, I was deep inside the casino in the resort’s basement. Now, I’m not much of a gambler. In fact, I find the whole idea a little silly. If I want to get my blood pressure up and my heart racing just for a thrill, I can think of a lot of better ways to do it that don’t mean losing money. That being said, I will take a few chances on some slot machines. I spent around an hour trying different machines and ended up walking out with 300 dollars. I was happy with my winnings, but surrounding me were high rollers who would have scoffed at such a measly take. Businessmen and retired moguls were losing more money than I had in my savings account on single hands of blackjack and poker without even blinking an eye. I stayed and watched them for a while until, one by one, they lost, cracked a joke, and left the table. By then, the casino was pretty much empty, so I faded off into the halls and back to my room to pack and get some sleep before my early rise the next morning. 

As I got into bed, I reflected on my time there. I had never seen someplace quite like The Greenbrier before. But even more than that, I couldn’t shake what my friend, the tuxedo-wearing worker, had said a few nights before. They didn’t hide what they were doing when they built the bunker. It was just that nobody bothered to ask. It was built in secret, but not secretly. It made me curious about how much isn’t known about this place. It’s the perfect spot to hide things because there is so much going on to distract you. No wonder no one noticed the construction of a massive bunker the size of a Walmart. They were too preoccupied with the elegance of this place and all of the things to peel their eyes away from what was really happening. I wondered if that was still happening. I thought like this for what seemed like hours until my head was full of ideas about three-letter agency black sites and deep-state safe houses. Maybe that’s just the effect someplace like this has on people.

Eventually, I got up, sat on the bed’s edge, and checked the time. 2:00 AM, the clock read. I had psyched myself out of sleeping. I decided to do what I had done almost every evening to decompress so far. I went out to the lounge, which sat empty and dark at that time of night and stared out the window. I hoped to see a subtle red flash somewhere in the many trees standing in the distance. Something to indicate the presence of that radio tower. Just so I could say I found actually it. But after a while, I saw nothing and began to yawn, so I retired to my room again to quickly fall asleep.

Leaving through the side door of the lounge that morning, I was met with a cool breeze and a gray, overcast sky. The valet had pulled my car around close to the door and waited there for me, smiling. As I collected my keys and thanked the valet, he told me he hoped I had a pleasant stay, and I told him I did. Yet, while I said it was nice, I knew that it was more than that. The Greenbrier is a strange, fabulous place. It’s got wonder and intrigue. It’s got history. Honestly, it feels a little bit like I dreamt the whole thing up. It’s only when I revisit the pictures I took that I confirm it was real. As I loaded my bag, I thought of how perfect the fake tree was as a metaphor for this place. Hidden among the elegance of this immaculate resort’s vintage luxury and secluded privacy are hidden realities – bunkers for doomsday and secrets only a few people probably know. Hidden in the forest is a fake tree. I took in the picturesque scenery around me one last time and made for the driver’s side door. Just as I began to slip inside and onto the seat, though, something caught my eye. About 100 yards directly in front of me, planted firmly beside the pathway I had driven down five days before, was the line of pine trees that soothed my weary mind each night. And right in the middle of them was an imposter. A tree that looked so close in color and shape to the rest of them that if you weren’t looking for it, you would never see that it was completely fabricated. I had found it.