May 8th, 2008 - President's daughter guest at Whitehall Inn - Camden Herald

Camden and the Whitehall Inn played a small part in the engagement last year that preceded this coming weekend’s wedding of the President’s daughter. Greg and Sue Marquise, owners of the Whitehall Inn, have confirmed that Jenna Bush and her fiance Henry Hager stayed at the inn during August 2007, the day before Hager’s well-publicized proposal on the slopes of Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island.

Bush and Hagar are expected to marry Saturday, May 10, at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. According to the innkeepers, Hager called from the road just hours before the couple arrived in Camden. The inn’s 45 rooms were already heavily booked, but the modest room Hager requested was available.

“We didn’t recognize Jenna Bush, and we recall she kept a low profile,” said innkeeper Greg Marquise “Mr. Hager, on the otherhand, was quite animated and asked a lot of questions about the inn and the area.”

“They asked for recommendations on restaurants near the harbor, and, as we recollect, they settled on the Waterfront Restaurant”, said Marquise The innkeepers did not realize who their guests were until a couple days later when the engagement of the president’s daughter, out of the limelight in recent years, made headlines around the world. A close look at the reservation file and photos on the Internet confirmed everything, Marquise explained.

FAMOUS GUESTS

Soon, the secret trip to Maine was being revealed. Marquise declined to confirm or deny inquires made at the time by The Camden Herald becasue, he said, the inn, which has had many famous guests over its 108-year history, for privacy reasons does not like to comment on current or very recent guests

After the visist last summer, one Whitehall Inn employee even rejected a sizeable offer from a national tabloid newspa- per looking for details of the first daughter’s stay at the inn. The inn, however, is not shy in talking about its past guest list, which has included Bill Clinton, Prince Abdullah who is now King of Jordan, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, Linda Ronstadt, Mae West, Tal- lulah Bankhead, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and many sports stars.

Marquise said Jenna Bush has openly talked about many details of her mid-August trip to Maine, including camoing in frigid overnight weather in Acadia National Park, before her pre-dawn engagement. Another inn in Bar Harbor also gave an interview published in a current issue of a magazine about their accommodations there following the proposal. Therefore, Marquise felt that the innkeepers would not be violationg any trust at this time.

Less than 24 hours before she got her ring, the president’s daughter enjoyed hand- squeezed orange juice, a bowl of fresh fruit, and a breakfast buffet at the Whitehall Inn. Ruoana Tulbure, a Romanian student employee at the inn, waited on the couple at a table next to the large windows overlooking the patio, and remem- bers them as very pleasant and focused on each other.

Tulbure, upon learning that she had waited on Jenna Bush, immediately called home and created some excitement in her Romanian town, perhaps eclipsing the buzz when Tulbure was named the top engineering student at her large university.

Marquise said that once they realized that the President’s daughter had been a guest, they immediately figured out the Secret Service coverage, since there was another last minute booking just minutes after Hager’s call.

The couple stayed in a simple room, with a view of Penobscot Bay across a second floor roofline. The only famous guest known to have occupied the same room was Wally Cox, a comedian and actor, known as Mr. Peepers and eventually a regular on Hollywood Squares.

The Whitehall Inn is best known for its role in the filming of “Peyton Place” in 1957 and for the discovery there of local poet Edna St. Vincent Millay when she entertained guests in 1912.

Hager, whose father is the Republican Party chief in Virginia, and his fiancee are expected to tie the knot at the Presdent’s ranch in Crawford, Texas on Saturday, and bets are they will honeymoon in Europe rather then make a repeat visit to Maine.