Southern Charm and ­Comfort are More ­Accessible Than One May Think

From cool mountain retreats to countryside sporting estates to coastal Low Country plantations, no itinerary of five-star relaxation is complete without a trip through the American South.

But no longer is luxury south of the Mason-Dixon Line the preserve of a few well-heeled families; you, too, can make the rounds of southern travel showplaces, whether in the mountainside footsteps of the Vanderbilts; at a historically-significant antebellum plantation turned resort north of Atlanta; or at a palmetto-shaded redoubt of genteel coastal sophistication just outside of Charleston, S.C., among many other premium destinations.

And for those with a yen for a truly personal experience, there are more and more individual vacation rental properties available, like the Laughing Frog Estate hidden away in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains. There you’ll find solitude, lush grounds, and the chance to craft an a la carte getaway experience without the bustle of a popular resort.

The Cottage on Biltmore Estate
For pure splendor, start with the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C. The imposing French baronial-inspired mansion built before the turn of the last century by George Vanderbilt served for decades as the family’s summertime mountain retreat.

You can tour the huge, 250-room mansion, with its priceless furniture, historic art, and touchstones of Gilded-Age culture. You can even stay at the estate’s new, well-appointed resort. But to get a real taste of what life must have been like for the Vanderbilts and their guests, book the deceptively plain-sounding Cottage on the Biltmore Estate.

Housed in a sumptuously renovated home on the estate (formerly the Vanderbilts’ market gardener’s residence, later used for VIP visitors) you’ll be attended by your own 24-hour staff including a personal assistant, a chef, and even a chauffeur. Guests are feted with multi-course feasts suitable for patrician palates, and handled with the kind of detail-oriented care expected by wealthy travelers of the past, whether it be arranging elaborate picnic outings on the 8,000-acre estate grounds, trips into Asheville for cultural events, or whipping up scratch-baked chocolate-chip cookies at three in the morning.

“You make your guests happy with food,” says Dalila Mendez, a Cordon Bleu graduate who serves as a Biltmore Cottage personal assistant, or butler. “If they’re pleased with the food, you can’t go wrong.”

And it would be tough not to be pleased with breakfasts like Eggs Benedict and sautéed asparagus or blueberry muffin French toast, lunches including an arugula lettuce-roasted pear salad, or dinner entrees such as carefully prepared chateaubriand with a honey-mustard glaze or horseradish cream.

Fine wines from the estate’s own stock are available, but true oenophiles need not limit their tastes. “If they want a particular wine that is not on the property, then we’ll go out and get it,” Dalila said.

Just as in the Vanderbilt era, dinners are dramatic events, with five courses including soup, salad, a main course, dessert, and after dinner-cheeses. “We always surprise our guests with an amuse bouche,” adds Dalila. “It’s the very first course that the chef presents to the guests, something small just to cleanse the palate.”

It’s all prepared by the chef and served at the cottage, and of course input from the guests is more than welcome. “We do have a menu, but most of our guests don’t choose from it. We tell them we can make anything their hearts desire,” Dalila says. The service often begins even before arrival, when the staff contacts future guests to quiz them on their likes, dislikes, wishes, wants, and desires.

The 1,500 square foot, two-story home has two plush bedrooms, each with its own very modern, very pleasing bathroom, with polished granite sinks, garden tubs, and walk-in showers. The home’s furnishings are styled after those of the estate’s centerpiece mansion. If you take a liking to a piece or two, you can order your own from the Biltmore’s line of home décor.

The Laughing Frog Estate
Some consider home-like solitude itself a form of luxury. So the next stop down south should be a showpiece home nestled in the woods near Asheville, N.C. You’ll be surrounded by 215 forested acres, with miles of private hiking trails, your own tennis court (no waiting, no time-slot reservations, no critical kibbitzers), and an organic garden, greenhouse, and orchard from which you’re welcome to select produce for the estate’s well-appointed gourmet kitchen.

The five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath home’s owner, Kelley Wilkinson, says travelers are turning to private rentals to avoid the crowds they find in resort settings. “When you rent a hotel room, you get the room. You get the lobby that you’re sharing with everybody. You get the restaurant that you’re sharing with everybody,” she said. “For people who don’t want to be listening to the sound of cars and lots of people and everything going on, this is a great setting.”

At Laughing Frog Estate, named by Kelley’s young daughter for a species of frogs that emerge in early, early spring for mating season, filling the air with a distinctive chuckling sound, visitors enjoy completely private access to creeks and a koi pond on the property, along with an outdoor Jacuzzi, five miles of private mountainside hiking trails, and even a waterfall outside the front door. Bikes are available on site.

Inside you’ll find large-screen cable/satellite televisions with a vast DVD library, fireplaces, a pool table, sophisticated décor at every turn, plenty of reading material and nooks in which to curl up for hours or minutes of silence. Dramatic mountain views spread into the distance, giving a sense of expansiveness to complement the nested feeling of the property.

The 7,000-square-feet home is ornamented with antiques personally selected by Kelley, an artist specializing in watercolors. Several of her own works ornament the dramatic grand staircase from the huge great room. Many of the furnishings predate the home, and served as inspiration for its design. “I basically drew out the plans on a napkin,” says Kelley, who cultivates a serious interest in architecture in addition to her artwork.

“Much of the wood comes from the property. It was an old Appalachian home site, including an entire mountain cove,” she says. When they bought the property twenty years ago, there was nothing there but the foundations of previous structures. “It was a very long process building the house, probably about ten years, because so much of it was handmade.” Local artisans specializing in wood and stone worked on the house, which includes 200-year-old stained-glass windows salvaged from a Rhode Island seaport mansion.

“Everybody is different, but most people love the openness of the home, the windows, the feeling that they can see forever, and yet it’s nestled back into the mountain,” Kelly says. An on-site caretaker (occupying their own cottage at some distance from the main house) also serves as a concierge arranging on site or off site experiences. “For some of our guests, we’ve arranged for private chefs; we have arranged for small weddings…We try to make it a special experience.”

Barnsley Gardens Resort
Special experiences are also on tap at a wonderland of comfort hidden in the foothills an hour north of Atlanta that blends the best of an Old South upcountry estate with features of a traditional English rural village.

Centered on the dramatic ruins of an 1840s Italianate mansion built by wealthy cotton businessman Godfrey Barnsley, the resort offers carefully restored heirloom gardens, newly-constructed guest cottages, five-star dining, championship level golf, and endless other activities, including fishing, hunting, canoeing, biking, horseback riding, nature hikes, even paintball battles.

Most interesting, it’s a destination that is both old and new, as the grounds were gradually reclaimed over the last twenty years from the lush southern undergrowth that consumed the property when it was essentially abandoned in the mid-1900s.

“You used to drive by on the road and look up here and just see kudzu,” says Recreation Manager Donna Martin, an area native who presides genially over “The Outpost” a reconstructed and deliciously creaky log cabin packed with gifts, souvenirs, and sporting equipment, Guests stop by The Outpost to chat and gear up before heading out to fish, play Frisbee golf, practice archery, take bird watching hikes, try the resort’s sporting clays shooting course, or many other outdoor activities.

The property consists of thousands of rolling acres, from carefully manicured to heavily wooded, with nooks and crannies of all sorts in between. A graceful pair of swans nest at the fishpond. Bocce balls rest on the carefully trimmed lawn, ready to roll. A tiny landscaped spring called “Carl’s Folly” provides a shaded hideaway mere footsteps from the dramatic ruined mansion and its lush, boxwood-based parterre, carefully restored to its original form, based on the design principles of premier 19th century landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing, who also designed the grounds of the U.S. Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution.

The ruins themselves stand open, partially restored, and available for picnics, dances, and romantic moonlight dinners. Very gently lighted at dusk, the old mansion at eventide is a sight not to be missed, especially when the flowering shrubs and boxwood scent the evening air with their musky aromas. The resort sponsors regular Firefly Evenings at the ruins, with dinner and dancing that echo the mid-19th century affairs of the original owners.

Continuing the magical theme, the resort’s official Fairy Godmother, Denise Webb, stands ready to get creative in making your Barnsley Gardens visit a special one. From her prop-crammed office in the restored 1840s stage coach house, where female plantation guests done in by their four-week journey from Savannah were powdered and refreshed for visiting, Denise has an actual wand to work her magic, though it’s usually kept behind glass.

“Sometimes we dress up in costumes; we have water balloon fights, lots of crazy things,” says Denise. “If you want to do a rodeo with your family, we’ll teach you how to rope and ride.”

The Woodlands Resort & Inn
No roundup of the American South would be complete without a visit to a first-rate Low Country estate, and the Woodlands Resort & Inn near Charleston fills the bill superbly. In fact, nowhere will you find a more complete luxury package: The Woodlands and its renowned dining room are one of only three U.S. properties to earn AAA Five Diamond and Mobil Five-Star awards for both lodging and dining.

Guests approach the 1906 Georgian Revival estate along a winding lane lined with Spanish moss-draped live oaks, catching glimpses of the carefully groomed croquet lawn, English-style red-clay tennis courts, and beautiful gardens before pulling up before the imposing columned inn and being welcomed by a concierge, often with a tasty gourmet treat to offer in greeting.

Choosing from among 18 room packages, or a separate cottage, visitors relax in an environment designed to put them at ease even as they bask in luxury and take advantage of amenities that are far from routine for most people, but would have been just the thing for the home’s builder, fin de siecle railroad tycoon Robert W. Parsons.

For instance, you’ll be able put your feet up in the Governor’s Suite without kicking over any of its West Indies-influenced knick-knacks; the suite measures an expansive 864 square feet spread out over two rooms, a plush master bedroom and a sitting room complete with a gas fireplace, wet bar, and a balcony overlooking the property’s gracious 42-acre estate.

In keeping with the property’s World War II role as a well-chaperoned meeting place for American servicemen and local belles, even the one-room Executive Suite offers plenty of room (630 square feet) for friends and family to gather.

But if you have a few more friends or relatives, or just a yen for solitude, you may want to look into the Woodlands’ Country Cottage, located a short distance from the main inn — apart for privacy, close for convenience. And while you’re there, enjoy the cottage’s deluxe-sized whirlpool bath, separate shower, and steam-warmed towel racks (also available in other inn rooms).

But there’s more to luxury than hot towels; you can also accent your visit by choosing from an extensive list of extras ranging from a special rose-petal turndown service at $18, fresh-baked cookies and milk for $14, chocolate-covered strawberries at $22, a dozen roses at $99, Dom Perignon for $232, even a bottle of Cristal champagne at the bubbly price of $486.

At the Woodlands, wonderful food is a crucial element of the equation. Known locally and by international travelers for having South Carolina’s only Mobile Five-Star Award restaurant, the Woodlands features New American Cuisine as created by Chef Nathan Whiting. Guests enjoy dishes like South Carolina Quail Breast, Keegan Farm Suckling Pig, Chilled Hawaiian Blue Prawns, and Coddled Main Lobster with Thumbelina Carrot Mousseline.

For off-site activities, you can’t go wrong with the small town of Summerville, home to shops, cafes, and boutiques. A mere twenty minutes away is the historic district of Charleston itself. Stroll the narrow, old-world lanes between Broad and Battery streets and view the dramatic side-yard gardens ornamenting the 17th century downtown mansions. Or travel up the Ashley or Cooper rivers to visit spectacular plantations like Middleton Place, Magnolia Plantation Gardens, Boone Hall Plantation, or Drayton Hall. For those with military tastes, consider reconnoitering military sites like Civil War-era Fort ­Moultrie and Fort Sumter, as well as the retired U.S. warship the U.S.S. Yorktown on a lap around Charleston Harbor, their no-nonsense utilitarianism a fitting counterpoint to your lap around the South’s luxurious destinations.

The Deluxe Details
Barnsley Gardens Resort
597 Barnsley Gardens Road
Adairsville, GA 30103
888-467-9062;
www.barnsleyresort.com
Manor Rooms: $259-$299; Garden Suites: $335-$375; Meadow Suites: $375-$399; Arbor Cottage: $556
Bike Rental: $12 per day, $30 per 4 hours; $10 trail-use fee for visitors with their own bikes
Sporting Clays: 100 rounds, $40 Barnsley Gardens member/$65 non-member
Garden Tours: $10 adults; $8 seniors; $5 under 12; complimentary for resort guests
Paintball: $20 field admission; $15 paintball gun and safety gear; paintballs—$50/1,000; $25/500; $12.50/250; paintball package: $65 for field admission, 500 paintballs, paintball gun, safety equipment, 9 oz. CO2 tank, referee.
Horseback Riding: (Riders must be 11 or older) 1 hour/$80; 2 hour/$125; children’s corral ride $45/30 minutes.

The Woodlands Inn
125 Parsons Road
Summerville, SC 29483
800-774-9999;
www.woodlandsinn.com
Superior Room: wkday/$125 per night, wkend/$255 per night; Junior Suite: $265, $305; Executive Suite: $345, $395; Governor’s Suite: $455, $565; Cottage: $595, $695

Laughing Frog Estate
Asheville, NC
828-712-9910; www.vrbo.com/169238
$985 per night (2-night minimum)/$5,200 per week ($300 cleaning fee); “Couples” rate:
2 people only, $2,600 per week,
plus tax and cleaning.

The Cottage on Biltmore Estate
Inn on Biltmore Estate
1 Antler Hill Road
Asheville, NC 28803
800-411-4063; www.biltmore.com; $2,800 per night.

More Amazing Southern Resorts
The south is packed with luxurious resorts and destinations. Here are just a few more:

The Lodge on Little St. Simons Island
Post Office Box 21078
1000 Hampton Point Drive
Little St. Simons Island, GA 31352
888-733-5774
www.littlestsimonsisland.com
You may feel a bit like the crew of the S.S. Minnow on this nearly deserted island off the coast of Georgia. Limited to thirty overnight guests, the lodge specializes in toes-in-the-sand relaxation in a casual, rustic atmosphere combined with top-of-the-line beachfront cuisine.

The Greenbriar
300 West Main Street
White Sulphur Springs, WV 24986
800-453-4858
www.greenbrier.com
If you want to wander in the footsteps of some of the leading lights of the nation, try this National Historic Monument near White Sulphur Springs, W.V. In operation since 1778, and for thirty straight years a AAA Five Diamond Award Winner, the Greenbrier’s imposing architecture and dignified presence really lets you feel you’ve arrived.

Blackberry Farm
1471 West Millers Cove Road
Walland, TN 37886
865-380-2260
www.blackberryfarm.com
Located on the fringe of the Great Smokey Mountains, Blackberry Farms offers guests a rural but luxurious resort experience complete with fly fishing instruction and guided trips to gurgling mountain trout streams, as well as top flight cuisine at the on site gourmet restaurant.

The Homestead
P.O. Box 2000
Hot Springs, VA 24445
866-354-4653
www.thehomestead.com
A historic monument to comfort and luxury offering modern travelers tbe best in traditional recreation amenities, that’s The Homestead in a nutshell. Skeet, carriage rides, leadership and teams courses, bowling, supervised kids’ activities, downhill skiing, a European-style spa, and even a grand ballroom are among the highlights of a stay at The Homestead, founded before the American Revolution.

Pinehurst Resort
80 Carolina Vista Drive
Village of Pinehurst, NC 28374
910-235-8507
www.pinehurst.com
There’s more than golf at the Pinehurst Resort, though many will want to take time out from enjoying the beautiful mountain scenery and activities to play through the resort’s famous championship courses, especially the renowned Number 2, which despite the name is second to none.

The Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation
One Lake Oconee Trail
Greensboro, GA 30642
706-467-0600;
www.ritzcarlton.com/en/properties/reynoldsplantation
Kids and their parents will love this resort’s dramatic lake front pool, as well as all the other amenities on the property. Remember to check out the “club level” accommodations for the very best in attentive service five-star extras.

Daniel Lee is the former editor of Jack and Jill magazine for kids. He has also written for the Nashville Tennessean, Cincinnati Enquirer, ­Indianapolis Star, Louisville Courier-Journal, Children's Digest and U.S. Kids.