In 1952, the hotel was sold again to Mr. & Mrs. Harold Thomas. According to reports, the Grand had pretty much worn off by this time. “The lobby, dining room and saloon were ghosts of a once elegant era. Rooms were threadbare with straw mattresses still sprawling on sagging springs. Two public bathrooms on each of the three floors were the only personal sanitary facilities in the hotel. Upstairs pieces of the once picturesque chimneys sometimes fell to the sidewalk due to weathering. Bats nested in cavities in the cornices. Soot from the chimneys sifted down the walls and birds flew in and out at will. The window frames were so loose in their masonry that a person could stick his hand through the cracks. Sun had warped the window moldings badly. Settlement of the building made the upper floors sag. Less damaging, but more noticeable, were the worn early 1900s era leather easy chairs in the lobby which sprouted springs and the inlaid marble like linoleum floor was missing tiles, worn and patched.”
Mr. Thomas removed the falling chimneys, sealed the holes and repaired the cornices, painted, added new structural supports, fitted the building with new plumbing and wiring, and fumigated completing a one man, multi-year restoration that is credited with saving the building.