Old Point Comfort Resort:: Hospitality, Health and History on Virginia's Chesapeake Bay

The Chamberlin Hotel still stands today as a dominant landmark along the Hampton Roads Harbor. This restored hotel symbolizes the days when Old Point Comfort was the premiere health and holiday resort in the South. The Hygeia and Chamberlin were grand hotels that lavishly catered to invalids, travelers and vacationers seeking relief from the summer's heat during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Steamships and trains brought hundreds daily to enjoy Old Point Comfort. These elegant buildings combined a luxurious health resort and waterfront atmosphere with military bands, parades, promenades, historic sites, fresh breezes and the promise of courtship. Longtime Fort Monroe resident and Hampton historian John Quarstein has woven together tales and images, recipes and artifacts to tell the wonderful story of the Old Point Comfort Resort.

John V. Quarstein is an award-winning historian, preservationist, lecturer and author. He served as director of the Virginia War Museum for over thirty years and, after retirement, continues to work as a historian for the city of Newport News. He is in demand as a speaker throughout the nation. Quarstein is the author of fourteen books, including the companion volume to The CSS Virginia, The Monitor Boys. He has produced, narrated and written six PBS documentaries, including the Civil War in Hampton Roads series, which was awarded a 2007 Silver Telly. John Quarstein is the recipient of over twenty national and state awards, such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy's Jefferson Davis Gold Medal in 1999. Besides his lifelong interest in Tidewater Virginia history, Quarstein is an avid duck hunter and decoy collector. He lives on Old Point Comfort in Hampton, Virginia, and on his family's Eastern Shore farm near Chestertown, Maryland.