At 10 a.m. yesterday, only six guests remained at the iconic Elbow Beach Hotel.

The 101-year-old property closed its main doors on November 30 a sad day for staff and guests.

Though the South Shore property's cottages will remain open, the main building, which houses the bulk of its rooms, will close for several years.

It is not known when it will resume operating as a fully-functioning resort. General manger Frank Stocek has said construction will begin in 2012.

For Ruth Simpson it certainly was a sad day.

"I've been coming here every year since 1968 when I came down for College Weeks," she said. "Elbow Beach is a really special place for me."

Her daughter Holly joked that her mother still has the beach towel bearing the hotel's name from that first holiday 40 years ago.

Though the Simpsons stay at the St. George's Club where they have a timeshare, Mrs. Simpson said they spend a lot of time at the Warwick hotel.

"I just had to come here and say goodbye today," she said. "I don't know when it will open again. It is such a grand building and such a great place. I just love the beautiful Bermuda cedar."

Ruth Sambrook was a pastry chef at Elbow for more than a decade. She said she felt like she was losing part of her family.

"It is surreal," she said. "I thought I would be more emotional but I don't think it will hit me for another day or two, when I don't wake up and head to Elbow.

"This has been my life for so long that it is hard to imagine not coming here. The people I have worked with have become great friends, it is a very close group in the kitchen. Not seeing them is going to be hard, many are returning to their home countries."

Tomorrow night the entire kitchen staff is heading into Hamilton to Chopsticks for dinner — something that has never happened before.

"Because everyone is on different shifts we have never gone out as a whole group, tomorrow should be a fun night."

Ms Sambrook, who worked in the hotel's food and beverage section, is one of 146 hotel workers made redundant. The MEF Group runs three restaurants on the property — Lido, Sea Breeze and Mickey's — and will now be responsible for that area.

Ms Sambrook said she planned to continue working in hospitality in Bermuda but her employment is not finalised.

"It's been hard as this day has come, it feels odd coming in but not doing any prep for tomorrow," she said. "We are busy packing up the kitchen today."

Seahorse Grill maître d' Delton Ebbin started working at Elbow when he was 18 and has since risen up the ranks.

"I owe my father for getting me into Elbow," the 36-year-old said. "I was laying around the house that summer and he came into my room and bellowed 'you are getting a job. You are not just sitting around here all day'. He told me to apply to four hotels and I got offered a position here."

He has since found a job at the Mandarin Oriental in Boston, and starts there on Friday.

"I am really going to miss the guests here, especially the repeat guests," he said. "We have had some of our guests come down four times in the last two months to make sure they could enjoy it as much as possible before the closure.

"There is one family I have literally watched grow up. Their daughter was two when I started and they come every year. We've been getting lots of hugs goodbye from guests, one woman apologised that the American economy had impacted the hotel, I told her not to worry about that as she was here to enjoy her holiday."

Despite the sadness of the occasion Mr. Ebbin said he understood why the closure was happening: "It is necessary in order to get to the level of service that we want to."

But while many long-serving staff will be saying goodbye there are a few familiar faces that will remain.

Lawrence Burchall is one of them. The head bell captain has been at the property for 44 years. He has seen it change management, expand and diversify. One era he remembers fondly is College Weeks.

"That was a great time," he said. "We made quite a name for ourselves. We would only take ladies and on our busiest days there would be 1200-1300 people staying here four girls in a room. And of course all the young men would come here to the beach parties and bars to meet the young ladies.

"I think that was a large part of our success as well. People have been coming back since College Weeks, they've had their honeymoons here and then brought their children."

Some of the highlights of his time at Elbow included the filming of popular US soap 'The Young the Restless', celebrity guests such as Tony Curtis and Charles Barkley, and training in hotels in New York and Florida.

"It is definitely going to be quiet around here," he said. "There won't be as many people and I probably will only see most of the guests when they check in and check out, not like now when there are always people around."