ShareThisUnder gray skies, ethereal clouds cling to green mountainsides beneath their peaks. Whitecaps foam on the surface of the Columbia River. It's the kind of early March day that Edward Cullen might enjoy.
Cullen, as "Twilight" fans know, is the vampire hero of the book series by author Stephenie Meyer, which became a hit movie last fall starring actor Robert Pattinson as Edward. Stores start selling the DVD at midnight Friday, and parties to celebrate its home-video release will be held this weekend -- even at The View Point Inn.
Set on a cliff that overlooks the Columbia River Gorge, the 85-year-old restaurant and inn has become a destination for foodies and romantics since re-opening in 2007. Now it's a draw for "Twilight" fans, too: The movie's concluding prom scene filmed here.
Donn Angelo Simione, a Youngstown, Ohio, native, co-owns the inn with partner Geoff Thompson. Simione worked as an actor for two decades, including stints in touring companies of "A Chorus Line" and "Singin' in the Rain." He ended up in Los Angeles with guest-star spots on "General Hospital" and "Mr. Belvedere" in the 1980s before changing careers and becoming a personal trainer.
"I just didn't want to go out and tour as much," said Simione, who now goes by his middle name, Angelo. "I was still getting work -- it wasn't like I wasn't getting anywhere and needed to get out -- but you have to have a drive and want to do theater. It wasn't as predominant in my life at that point and I'd gotten into working out."
At Gold's Gym in Hollywood, Simione and Thompson met, and eventually Simione came to share Thompson's dream of reviving the View Point Inn. Growing up in Portland, Ore., Thompson first encountered the inn as a child.
"I grew up extremely poor, and this represented to me that if I could have that place, I'd be somebody," he said. "I've just always loved it."
Opened in 1925, the Tudor-style inn with Arts and Crafts interior was designed by architect Carl Linde and began serving customers just as automobile tourism came to the Columbia River Gorge. The inn's rectangular dining room is dominated by a large stone Rumford fireplace on one side and five sets of French doors that open onto a veranda that runs the length of the room opposite the fireplace.
Gusty winds -- sometimes clocked at more then 100 mph -- can rattle the inn, which generally gets better reviews for its restaurant than its accommodations on Web sites such as Yelp.com and TripAdvisor.com, where some patrons complain of communication issues surrounding bookings.
William Moessner, a native of Germany, purchased the inn in 1927 and ran it successfully for almost 50 years, hosting such notables as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charlie Chaplin. The inn closed in the late 1970s upon Moessner's death and became a private home. Later, it sat vacant and abandoned until Thompson and Simione purchased it in 2003 following a lengthy legal battle with the government and environmental groups. Now they're fighting to keep the inn alive while restoring it -- the building needs a new roof -- as part of their historic preservation efforts.
A December fire at the inn -- mostly confined to the dishwashing area of the kitchen -- didn't help matters. The damage has been repaired, and the inn's restaurant, which has been operating on a weekends-only schedule since, is slated to reopen Wednesday for weekday lunch and dinner service (Tuesday-Friday).
"It's tough right now, just the way the whole economy is," Simione said. "We're holding our own."
In addition to wedding bookings -- 50 percent of the inn's revenue -- "Twilight" is helping the View Point to survive.
Since word of filming at the inn leaked on the Internet, fans have been coming to visit. The proprietors had no idea about the "Twilight" phenomenon.
"We went to a bookstore expecting to go through shelves looking for a copy of the first book, and we asked a woman working there about it, and she brought us to this huge display of 'Twilight' books," Thompson recalled.
Fans started visiting even before filming began, including two young girls who had their parents drive them down from Vancouver, British Columbia, almost seven hours by car. Today the inn receives calls from fans as far away as South Korea.
During filming, security guards had to keep at least 100 fans from invading the property and the film set, which included a gazebo built on the inn's front lawn. Thompson and Simione befriended two fans who visited the inn before filming. The fans returned during production, and the innkeepers allowed them to hide in a vestibule near the kitchen to watch the making of the movie. Eventually, the fans encountered star Pattinson as he emerged from preparing for a scene in the quiet of the inn's back office.
"He comes back downstairs, and we hear this screaming, and she's just going crazy," Simione said of one woman's reaction. "This is a married woman with a child. She scared the heck out of him."
The proprietors began to capitalize on the "Twilight" connection, hosting two sold-out "proms" that coincided with the film's fall release.
"What amazed me was the age range of the fans, who are primarily women," Simione said. "If guys were here, their girlfriends dragged them."
Filming "Twilight" at the View Point has even inspired a self-published book, "'Twilight' and the History of the View Point Inn," that's due out later this year.
For the movie's DVD release, the inn will host a "Twilight"-themed dinner party Saturday from a menu that includes "Bella Ravioli" -- named after Edward's human love interest, Bella Swan -- and an "Eternal Love" dessert (chocolate-ganache-covered red velvet cake with raspberry sauce). This weekend's party is sold out, but future "Twilight" parties are planned. (To find local stores that will be open and selling "Twilight" on DVD beginning at midnight Friday, visit http://www.twilightthemovie.com.)
To help raise funds to preserve the inn, the owners are selling engraved bricks for a pathway around the inn, including a special section set aside for "Twilight" fans. And they're hoping to entice filmmakers to return to the inn to film a wedding scene "with a deal they can't refuse," Simione said. That might be a long shot. Although the first "Twilight" filmed all around the Portland area -- St. Helens played the town of Forks, Wash. -- the second and third films will shoot in Vancouver, British Columbia.
(Contact TV editor Rob Owen at rowen(at)post-gazette.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit Pittsburgh Post-GazetteWith sidebars: OREGONSIDE1,2
