The late lunch crowd was at the bar in the Langhorne Hotel and everyone seemed to know the news: the hotel, one of Bucks County’s oldest continuously operated inns, is for sale.

Asking price: $2.5 million.

The sale is no small deal for Langhorne, one of the county’s Mayberry-esque boroughs, where the hotel has anchored the corner of Maple and Bellevue avenues since 1704.

Put another way, it was old when Gen. Washington set across the Delaware River in December 1776 to turn the tide of the American Revolution.

Owner Ben Asta was busy last week and couldn’t be interviewed for this piece, but he said through one of his employees that after 50 years of family ownership, it’s time to go.

“They want to retire,” said bartender Laura Shafer, standing behind the bar.

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The Horne, as locals sometimes call the place, is one of those cozy meeting places for friends and family. But before the Asta family purchased it in August 1972, it had a reputation, said Chris Blaydon, who served as the town's mayor for 20 years.

"When my wife and I moved into town (in 1967), it was a loser place, you know, a place where ladies in white gloves would never go," he said. "When the Astas bought it, it was a complete turnaround. Today it has some of the best food in Bucks County.

"It's a great place," said Blaydon, a retired airline pilot for Pan Am. "It reminds me of pubs I've been in, in England and Ireland."

Kristine Michael, a regular at the place, had just finished the French onion soup, for which she had high praise. She had her law practice located in several other nearby boutique towns, but chose to set up in the borough, in an office just a short walk from The hotel, which locals also call "The Langhorne Hilton."

“I never felt welcome in those places, but when I got here, I felt like I was part of the community. When things are tough, people help. It’s really a great community, and this is a great little place. It’s been around forever,” she said of the bar, as she finished her beverage.

The hotel was originally called The Tavern at Four Lanes End, at the convergence of two Native American trails, today Maple and Bellevue avenues.

It operated as a “house of entertainment” (as its 1724 license states) continuously as a bar, restaurant and hotel. In 1905, George Ehrlen bought the place, naming it the Langhorne Hotel —  until World War II. That’s when the federal government took it over, converted the building into five apartments for defense workers, due to an acute housing shortage.

Harry and Wanda Force were the next owners, renovating the hotel in 1952. Twenty years later, they sold it to Ben Asta, a state liquor store manager, and his wife, Lois, employed by the old Delaware Valley Hospital. They and their children worked the place.

In 1976, as the Astas renovated the bar and small front dining room, they were astonished to find the inn’s original, walk-in fireplace, an arched, brick beauty, that had been covered by a wall for decades. The Astas uncovered it, and it remains the first-floor focal point.

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The Langhorne Hotel remains a neighborhood shot-and-beer bar, where the most common call from clientele is Miller, draft and bottles.

“I’d say 95 percent of the people who come here are locals,” said Shafer, who has bartended at the place for the last five years (and is among the competitors for Bucks County Best Bartender). Most customers can walk to the bar from wherever they live in town, too.

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The bar and dining rooms seem unchanged, too. Dark wood, low, exposed beam ceilings, make it cozy and quiet. There are reports of ghosts, but what old Bucks County inn predating the Revolution wouldn’t have at least one haunting?

“Our glasses drop to the floor by themselves, flickering lights — you know, the usual ghost stuff,” Shafer said, adding, “Nothing scary, though.”

Several customers discussed the sale of the bar, and hoped the new owner won’t over-renovate it.

“It’s fine the way it is,” Michael said.

“Yeah, I hope whoever buys it doesn’t turn it into something like an Applebee's,” Shafer said.

JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: The Langhorne Hotel, among Bucks County's oldest operating inns, is for sale