Is it too much to ask for a resort with both luxurious sateen sheets annnnnd a breakfast of fluffy biscuits and ham? Or to ask for top-notch, four-star service but on a farm or at a country inn? Maybe someone with a pleasing drawl behind the counter at check in? There are a handful of resorts around the South that fit this bill beautifully. They’re both high-end and down home. Here are the five best resorts in the South where pastoral beauty and quaint charm meet pure opulence.
There’s something about vacationing in the South with its hospitality and unfussy appeal that is captured by only a handful of hotels. For travelers who have come to expect high-quality service, excellent gourmet food and sumptuous guest rooms, they may think these things can’t coexist with rural Southern farm country. They’d be wrong, y’all.
There’s a feeling you get when you roll through acres and acres of pristine land or a long-winding drive to arrive at a Southern resort in a stunning setting. Here are five of the best resorts in Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina that provide both a high-end experience with the ultimate down-home surroundings.
1. Half-Mile Farm – North Carolina
Wake up in a wrought iron bed with luxury linens, country quilts and impeccable service. Look out on vast acreage, plump treelines and the cute-as-a-button Apple Lake at this bucolic retreat. This is also where the pickiest of foodies find all their taste buds satisfied. Half-Mile Farm is an elevated country inn with a communal living room-esque feel from the folks behind the famed award-winning Old Edwards Inn. Unlike the inn, the farm is for guests over 18 years old.
If you want the feeling of sitting by a fire in comfy clothes, making friends with other well-heeled guests and staring out at the Blue Ridge Mountains, all while enjoying world-class wines and cuisine, you will love Half-Mile Farm. This is where those in need of nature, rest and a slower pace coupled with high-brow amenities find great comfort.
2. Montage Palmetto Bluff – South Carolina
Leave your car behind and bicycle around this pastoral wonderland amidst the Coastal Carolina marshlands. Surrounded by a maritime forest and the May River, Montage Palmetto Bluff looks like something out of a Pat Conroy novel. The well-appointed cottages and inn rooms are the epitome of Southern splendor.
Enjoy an oyster roast or a music festival in the Carolina Lowcountry. The oak trees are dripping with moss and the history of the Gullah people and the area is a reminder that the South is knee deep in good storytelling. All of this can be enjoyed while sipping Veuve Clicquot and riding on one of their signature yellow bicycles to a house made picnic.
3. Barnsley Resort – Georgia
Drive down a long winding road chockablock with the North Georgia landscape to find Barnsley Resort tucked away among the trees and rolling pastures. The lodge on property is quite luxe, but it’s the individual cabins that really put this place over the top. Walk among these retro cottages and out on among the unspoiled land and spot families making S’mores around a campfire or friends shooting skeet on a range. Keep moseying about to dine on a multi-course prix fixe menu at The Rice House or enjoy a high-end steak dinner with wine pairings at Woodlands Grill.
Golf here is beloved, with even Garden & Gun Magazine hosting shoot outs each year. There is a meditation zen garden, spa and pool for those who want to laze away the days. You are really out in the sticks of Georgia, so expect thick accents and a lot of pleasantries from the staff.
4. High Hampton Inn – North Carolina
I spent many years going to the old High Hampton Inn in Cashiers, NC. Back in the day it was a little worn for wear, but homey. The Beall family behind Blackberry Farm (read below) and others bought it up and elevated the entire experience. The rooms just about doubled in size. Marble was brought in for the bathrooms. And an incredible culinary and wine program was established.
The hours go by slow here. There’s time at High Hampton for sitting on the lawn and looking out over the lake. Also, you’ll find a spare moment or two for cutting a myriad of varieties of dahlias out of their stunning Dahlia Garden. There’s also time for red rocking chairs and well curated bottles of wine. This is the kind of place where men wear pink pants to dinner. And women wear floral caftans around the lake. Hospitality and charm rule the roost at this high-end vacation hot spot.
5. Blackberry Mountain – Tennessee
Every foodie and luxury traveler’s nirvana is to visit this Tennessee dreamland known as Blackberry Farm. But they recently opened another property in 2019 known as Blackberry Mountain. While the original Blackberry Farm looks like a red barn and a white house on a hill in a holler in the Smoky Mountains, it’s not. Blackberry Farm is actually a Relais & Chateaux property with rooms that start at $1500+ a night.
Although its new Blackberry Mountain property has a different vibe and is about $1000+ a night, it’s still Tennessee mountain chic. It’s up on a overlook about seven miles from the farm. This resort is much more about wellness and adventure. Think sound bathing, cardio drumming, yoga and hiking combined with a country vista. There are 30 cabins on the land, all with gorgeous views. And Gwyneth Paltrow and her GOOP buddies are already big fans.
If you’re like me, you enjoy a touch of folksy with the finer things. I hope you’ll try one of the five best resorts in the South for that kind of thing.
