Bill Rosado says he always had his eyes on Julia’s Old Forge Hotel — named for the Pennsylvania town of Old Forge — and bought the Lackawanna County landmark for an estimated $175,000.
Built in 1907, the two-story stucco building is down the road from Scranton, the blue-collar birthplace of President Biden.
Rosado, who proudly calls himself “Mexican by birth, American by choice,” was born in Mérida, Yucatán, and arrived in the United States at age 15 and grew up in Milford, Pa.
He began selling cars in 1981, opened his first dealership eight years later and now owns a group of car dealerships.
He plans to reopen a Mexican restaurant that was previously running there and keep the original name of the business.
“The location had tremendous appeal to me because of the quaintness and the history,” said Rosado, now 61. “As I’ve been blessed to travel around the world, I’ve found cute little places with a presence that can only be duplicated right in the middle of a town like Old Forge. Rosado is collaborating with his artist daughter, Sandra, to give customers an authentic look at Mexican culture.
“She has a tremendous appetite for artistic involvement and we’re going to fulfill one of her passions to duplicate a restaurant we’re very familiar with in Mexico,” he told the Scranton Times-Tribune. “It’s going to have a theme of Dia de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead.”
“I want to give the town a good experience to see the Mexican culture through a different lens,” Rosado said.
Rosado said he also plans to include a dozen hotel rooms on the second floor.
With information from the Times Herald-Record.
