Harold Bock was born and raised in West Virginia. "As a kid in this state, the first thing you learn about is the Mountaineers and their sports teams," says Bock. "The next thing you learn about is Sam Snead and the Greenbrier. It's an institution."

That's not an exaggeration. The Greenbrier, a hotel in White Sulphur Springs and a national landmark, has been a vacation getaway for society's elite since 1778.

The Greenbrier's place in history is safe, but its future is in doubt.

Certainly, the turbulent U.S. economy has not helped the Greenbrier's situation. But the root of the resort's problems is a labor dispute. Bock is the spokesperson for the Greenbrier's nine labor unions, which are currently embroiled in a 14-month negotiation with resort management for a new collective-bargaining agreement.

Last month, the Greenbrier's parent company, CSX (whose main business is owning and operating more than 21,000 miles of rail services in the eastern half of the United States), revealed the resort had lost $35 million in 2008. CSX (the railroad company and its predecessor, C&O, have owned the resort since 1910) said it had hired the banking and investment firm Goldman Sachs to do a complete analysis of the resort and deliver what is being referred to, ominously, as "a review."

Gary Sease, a CSX spokesman, does not deny the possibility that the Greenbrier could be forced to shut down. "All options are on the table," said Sease. "We'll see what Goldman Sachs has to say and go from there."

The Greenbrier, by anyone's definition, is one of golf's most all-inclusive resorts. It has 700 rooms, cottages and suites and offers guests 50 resort activities, including a 40,000-square-foot spa, off-road driver's training, falconry and three championship golf courses. (The Greenbrier course, built by Seth Raynor in 1924 and redesigned by Jack Nicklaus in 1977, hosted the 1979 Ryder Cup and 1994 Solheim Cup.) It also has "the bunker," a celebrated bomb shelter designed to house and protect Congress in case of national emergency, a relic of the Cold War era.

Its golf pedigree includes Snead. In 1936, when Snead was 24, he joined the resort as an assistant pro. At his death 66 years later, he was the Greenbrier's pro emeritus. He was succeeded in that role by Tom Watson, who has been vacationing with his family at the resort for years. "There's an elegance and a formality in this informal age that I particularly like," said Watson.