Charleston Wentworth Mansion

Frommer’s Review

An example of America’s Gilded Age, this 1886 Second Empire Inn touts such amenities as hand-carved marble fireplaces, Tiffany stained-glass windows, and detailed wood and plasterwork. If it is grand accommodations that you seek, you’ve found them. When a cotton merchant built the property in the 1800s, it cost $200,000, an astronomical sum back then. In the mid-1990s, a team of local entrepreneurs spent millions renovating it into the smooth and seamless inn you see today. Prior to its reopening in 1998, it had been a run-down office building. The guest rooms and suites are large enough to have sitting areas. All units have a king-size bed and a well-kept bathroom with a shower and whirlpool tub, and most have working gas fireplaces. The mansion rooms and suites also come with a sleeper sofa for extra guests, who are charged an additional $50 per night.

A full European breakfast is served in the inn’s sun room each morning, and guests are invited to relax each evening in the lounge for cordials or spend some quiet time reading in the library. The inn’s Circa 1886 Restaurant, one of the grandest in Charleston, is recommended even if you’re not a guest of the Wentworth.