CORBETT, Ore. -- Under gray skies, ethereal clouds cling to green mountainsides beneath their peaks. Whitecaps foam on the surface of the Columbia River. It's the kind of early March day that Edward Cullen might enjoy.

Cullen, as "Twilight" fans know, is the vampire hero of the book series by author Stephenie Meyer, which became a hit movie last fall starring actor Robert Pattinson as Edward. The film arrives on DVD Friday at midnight, and parties to celebrate its home video release will be held next weekend -- even at The View Point Inn.

Set on a cliff that overlooks the Columbia River Gorge, the 85-year-old restaurant and boutique hotel has become a destination for foodies and romantics since reopening in 2007. Now it's a draw for "Twilight" fans, too: The movie's concluding prom scene filmed here.

Donn Angelo Simione, a Youngstown native and 1975 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, co-owns the inn with partner Geoff Thompson. Simione worked as an actor for two decades, including roles in the Civic Light Opera's "Brigadoon" and "West Side Story" in the 1970s and touring companies of "A Chorus Line" and "Singin' in the Rain." He ended up in Los Angeles with guest star spots on "General Hospital" and "Mr. Belvedere" in the 1980s before changing careers and becoming a personal trainer.

"I just didn't want to go out and tour as much," said Simione, who now goes by his middle name, Angelo. "I was still getting work -- it wasn't like I wasn't getting anywhere and needed to get out -- but you have to have a drive and want to do theater. It wasn't as predominant in my life at that point, and I'd gotten into working out."

At Gold's Gym in Hollywood, Simione and Thompson met, and eventually Simione came to share Thompson's dream of reviving The View Point Inn. Growing up in Portland, Ore., Thompson first encountered the inn as a child.

"I grew up extremely poor, and this represented to me that if I could have that place, I'd be somebody," he said. "I've just always loved it."

Opened in 1925, the Tudor-style inn with Arts and Crafts interior was designed by architect Carl Linde and began serving customers just as automobile tourism came to the Columbia River Gorge. The inn's rectangular dining room is dominated by a large stone Rumford fireplace on one side and five sets of French doors that open onto a veranda that runs the length of the room opposite the fireplace.

Gusty winds -- sometimes clocked at more then 100 mph -- can rattle the inn, which generally gets better reviews for its restaurant than its accommodations on Web sites such as Yelp.com and Trip­Advisor.com, where some patrons complain of communication issues surrounding bookings.

William Moessner, a native of Germany, purchased the inn in 1927 and ran it successfully for almost 50 years, hosting such notables as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charlie Chaplin. The inn closed in the late 1970s upon Moessner's death and became a private home. Later, it sat vacant and abandoned until Thompson and Simione purchased it in 2003 following a lengthy legal battle with the government and environmental groups. Now they're fighting to keep the inn alive while restoring it -- the building needs a new roof -- as part of their historic preservation efforts.

A December fire at the inn -- mostly confined to the dishwashing area of the kitchen -- didn't help matters. The damage has been repaired, and the inn's restaurant, which has been operating on a weekends-only schedule since, is slated to reopen Wednesday for weekday lunch and dinner service (Tuesday-Friday).

"It's tough right now, just the way the whole economy is," Simione said, wearing a Steelers hat that the kitchen staff swear they've never seen him without. "We're holding our own."

In addition to wedding bookings -- 50 percent of the inn's revenue -- "Twilight" is helping The View Point to survive.

Since word of filming at the inn leaked on the Internet, fans have been coming to visit. The proprietors had no idea about the "Twilight" phenomenon.

"We went to a bookstore expecting to go through shelves looking for a copy of the first book, and we asked a woman working there about it, and she brought us to this huge display of 'Twilight' books," Thompson recalled.

Fans started visiting even before filming began, including two young girls who had their parents drive them down from Vancouver, British Columbia, almost seven hours by car. Today the inn receives calls from fans as far away as South Korea.

During filming, security guards had to keep at least 100 fans from invading the property and the film set, which included a gazebo built on the inn's front lawn. Thompson and Simione befriended two fans who visited the inn prior to filming. The fans returned during production, and the innkeepers allowed them to hide in a vestibule near the kitchen to watch the making of the movie. Eventually, the fans encountered star Pattinson as he emerged from preparing for a scene in the quiet of the inn's back office.

"He comes back downstairs, and we hear this screaming, and she's just going crazy," Simione said of one woman's reaction. "This is a married woman with a child. She scared the heck out of him."

The proprietors began to capitalize on the "Twilight" connection, hosting two sold-out "proms" that coincided with the film's fall release.

"What amazed me was the age range of the fans, who are primarily women," Simione said. "If guys were here, their girlfriends dragged them."

Filming "Twilight" at The View Point has even inspired a self-published book, " 'Twilight' and the History of The View Point Inn," that's due out later this year.

For some "Twilight" fans, the inn's role in the film is the draw. For others, it's a pleasant surprise. Jenna Peterson, 19, and Tyler Camp, 20, students at Portland's Concordia University, traveled to the inn for Sunday supper earlier this month, and the unexpected "Twilight" connection thrilled Peterson.

"I had a freak-out for a second," she said before buying a "Twilight" movie poster in the inn's gift shop. "I called my friend immediately."

For the movie's DVD release, the inn will host a "Twilight"-themed dinner party Saturday from a menu that includes "Bella Ravioli" -- named after Edward's human love interest, Bella Swan -- and an "Eternal Love" dessert (chocolate ganache-covered red velvet cake with raspberry sauce). Next weekend's party is sold out, but future "Twilight" parties are planned. (To find stores in the Pittsburgh area that will sell "Twilight" on DVD late Friday night, visit www.twilightthemovie.com.)

To help raise funds to preserve the inn, the owners are selling engraved bricks for a pathway around the inn, including a special section set aside for "Twilight" fans. And they're hoping to entice filmmakers to return to the inn to film a wedding scene in the fourth movie "with a deal they can't refuse," Simione said. That might be a long shot. Although the first "Twilight" filmed all around the Portland area -- St. Helens played the town of Forks, Wash. -- the second and third films will shoot in Vancouver.

Regardless, the inn remains the focus of the first film's most romantic scene, making it an appealing getaway for fans. The four guest rooms are located above the dining room and range from the small but cozy, pillow-adorned Petite Alcove -- built under an A-frame shaped dormer and the most conducive to a vampire's love nest -- to the Roosevelt Room suite, the only guest room with its own bathroom. (Guests in the other rooms share a first-floor bathroom with baskets in each room filled with towels and toiletries for easy transport.)

The Roosevelt Room includes both a bedroom and a large sitting room, complete with leather chaise longue that looks out a window toward the Columbia River and downtown Portland in the distance. The Roosevelt Room also played a role in "Twilight." Bad vampire Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre) was spotted looking down on Edward and Bella from the bedroom's west-facing window.

During a recent visit, foreboding Sunday skies gave way to bright sunshine Monday morning, but keeping with the "Twilight" theme, the view of the gorge proved capable of changing in an instant. Between bites of fruit from the continental breakfast included in a night's stay, the view out the dining room window changed from clear to densely fog-filled.

Edward Cullen would approve.