PROVINCETOWN — The Linchris Hotel Corp., a multi-state hotel management and investment company based in Plymouth, has bought the 102-room Provincetown Inn from the Evans family, who have owned it since 1977.
The total purchase price was $24 million, according to John Ciluzzi, the listing agent for the six-acre waterfront property. That number includes $21.6 million for the property itself, which includes two restaurants, a swimming pool, six function rooms, and 125 parking spaces, and another $2.4 million for the business, equipment, and furnishings, Ciluzzi said.
That sale closed on Dec. 22. A week later, on Dec. 29, Linchris also closed on the Foxberry Inn, a 12-room hotel nearby at 29 Bradford St. Extension. That property, which also includes a three-bedroom owner’s unit, sold for $3,050,000, according to its listing agent, Iskren Georgiev.
Linchris already owns four other hotels in Provincetown: the Surfside Hotel, which it bought in 2000; the Harbor Hotel, which it bought in 2018; and the Brass Key and Crowne Pointe hotels, which it bought in 2021.
According to town documents, the Surfside is licensed for 88 rooms, the Harbor Hotel for 139, the Brass Key for 43, and the Crowne Pointe for 37.
Adding the 104 licensed rooms at the Provincetown Inn (currently configured as 102 rooms) and the 12 licensed rooms at the Foxberry to those other holdings brings the Linchris Corp. up to 423 rooms in Provincetown — 31 percent of the town’s entire current inventory of 1,380 hotel rooms.
That makes Linchris the largest owner by far of Provincetown lodgings.
Ciluzzi said he had gotten calls from about 50 interested buyers, including timeshare operators, hotel operators, and residential redevelopment teams. He also said that, as a Provincetown native, he thought “we were vulnerable to a buyer coming in and putting up a single-family home — and I was not in favor of that.
“I was hoping we would end up with a suitor like Linchris,” Ciluzzi said. “Someone who would take the property to the next level, treat the guests the right way, and also be a good neighbor to the community. That was important to the Evans family. The community wins because we need that hospitality base. It’s healthy for the economy.”
Future Plans
Bob Anderson, president of Linchris Hotel Corp., told the Independent that the Foxberry Inn is slated to become employee housing to support the company’s other Provincetown hotels.
“The prior owners of the Provincetown Inn had employees living at the Dune Crest Hotel on the way out of town, which they also own, and that wasn’t an option for us,” Anderson said.
“You can’t buy anything in Provincetown without being able to house employees,” he added. Linchris had already purchased the Brass Key and Crowne Pointe’s employee housing properties in 2021, which include 25 bedrooms across four parcels.
Anderson said that Linchris has been in talks with the Evans family for several years about the Provincetown Inn.
“We love that location,” he said. “We love P’town. I can look out the window of my office in Plymouth and see the Pilgrim Monument.
“I live in Falmouth, a lot of our team live in Hyannis and Sandwich, and the director of our Cape Cod hotels, Jacqui Frost, has lived in Eastham her whole life,” Anderson said. “We have a track record here — we just want to run hotels, and that’s the only thing we do.”
Linchris operates about 30 hotels in 15 states, but the majority of them are in New England, Anderson said.
“We call the hotels in P’town, and Hotel 1620 in Plymouth, our legacy properties,” he said. “They’re important to us. When our investment partner wanted to sell the Hotel 1620, we found new investors to partner with, and we bought it again.
“We’re not buying the P’town Inn to tear it down and sell it, or build condos,” Anderson added. “It’s going to be a hotel as long as we’re affiliated with it.”
Anderson said the company wants to improve the Provincetown Inn’s capacity to host weddings, social events, and corporate groups. “I think we can bring some business to town that otherwise wouldn’t be there, particularly in the shoulder season,” he said.
The company plans to invest about $3 million in updating the Provincetown Inn after the 2024 season.
“We reinvested in the Harbor Hotel — adding the splash pad, improving the pool area, putting in all new bathrooms,” Anderson said. “I know that removing the whale mural upset a lot of people, but we’re putting windows in that wall to make the bar more attractive so people can have receptions there.”
Anderson said that the Evans family chose Linchris because they wanted their property to remain a hotel.
“Credit to the seller,” Anderson said. “We paid a sizable amount, but they probably could have gotten a little bit more money. They are passionate about their hotel, and when they come right out and say, ‘We want to sell to someone who will carry on what we started’ and they choose a buyer based on who the buyer is, I think that says a lot.”
