An Impressive Bed and Breakfast Guest Register
June 6, 2008
WHO SLEPT HERE?: Stay where the famous have dined, danced and dreamt. For his honeymoon, Clark Gable and his beloved wife, Carole Lombard, stayed at the Gold Mountain Manor, a romantic inn tucked away in mountainous Big Bear, Calif. This retreat hosted many of the rich and famous.
For those of us who frequent bed and breakfasts or country inns, the myriad of statesmen, writers, actors and other adorned personalities who once visited these places is one of many characteristics that makes the experience so unique.
For instance, guests staying at the opulent John Rutledge House Inn in Charleston, S.C., may proclaim not only that George Washington once dined there, but that first drafts of the U.S. Constitution were drawn up in the mansion’s ballroom. The home’s builder, John Rutledge, was no slouch himself in the context of American history. Rutledge, was not only a writer and signer of the Constitution, he also served as South Carolina’s first governor and a Supreme Court justice. A stay at Rutledge’s home is to experience a little piece of American history.
Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt both enjoyed a stayed at the Vichy Hot Springs Resort & Inn in Ukiah, Calif. The guest list also boasts famed writers such a Robert Lewis Stevenson, Mark Twain and Jack London. Today’s guests stay in newer lodging, but can still soak in the same soothing mineral waters as presidents, writers and other famous folk have enjoy for more than 150 years.
Hacienda del Sol, an 1810 adobe home outside of Taos, N.M. has a rich and varied history. It once catered to young girls as a college preparatory school, with such notable surnames as Vanderbilt and Pillsbury. In the 1920s, owner Mable Dodge Luhan, a famous patron of the arts, hosted such notable guests as D.H. Lawrence and Georgia O’Keefe. In the late 1940s, Hacienda del Sol opened as a guest ranch and catered to such celebrities as Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and John Wayne.
The Colonel Taylor Inn B&B and Gift Shop is named after Colonel Joseph D. Taylor, a four-term U.S. Congressman and Civil War veteran who built the house in 1878. Although he fought in the Battle of Fredericksburg against General Lee and his troops, he advised his superior, General Ambrose Burnside, against the attack, telling the General, “The carrying out of your plan will be murder, not warfare.” He became friends with President William McKinley, whose hometown of Niles, Ohio was in the 17th district that Colonel Taylor represented. McKinley has been verifed as a guest here; President Garfield and Hayes are said to have visted as well.
Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson were among the guests at The General Lewis, an early 19th-century bed and breakfast in Lewisburg, W.V. An actual 19th-century stagecoach rests on the property, once used to transport guests along the Kanawha Turnpike and to the local hot springs.
Even without the lure of famous guests, these special inns and bed and breakfasts would be worthy of booking a stay. For those of us who love history and cherish the past, it’s just an added bonus to know that we slept, shall we say, where Washington slept, too.
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