En route to Aiken from Atlanta you will likely pass through North Augusta, SC adjacent to Augusta GA. Confusingly enough, both state lines seem to overlap at certain junctures.

Just 30 minutes away from Aiken in the eye of North Augusta, minutes from the interstate, five miles from Augusta National Golf Club home to the famed Masters Golf Tournament,  and not far from Augusta, GA, we found a truly formidable, historically dramatic and welcomingly affordable place to stay: Lookaway Inn.

This Greek Revival columned and imposing inn faces the colorfully lighted town green and abounds with Turn of the Century glamor and gracefulness.  Built in 1898, a National Registry of Historic Homes, it is the Winner of the HotelsCombined Recognition of Excellence, and considered to be a true jewel, overlooking the Savannah Riverside.

We stayed in the back addition off a private and bricked courtyard and gardens which showcased its prize-winning red, pink and white camellias. The 15 rooms were large and split between the main house and the back wing with oversized dark oak antique wildly comfortable beds with impressively matched furnishings.

Breakfast was in the main manor house with its historic southern gentility and theatrical decor. The hotels takes a page out of the Gilded Age or from the stage setting of A Christmas Carol with its ornate-brocaded and tapestry draped interiors.

The house is quite remarkable with dramatically sweeping stairway, elaborate hearths and mantels, a gentlemen’s smoking lounge, ladies parlor and dining room elaborated set with gold service on red table coverings. There’s even a replica of the Titanic.

Breakfast is a very comprehensive and fulfilling help-yourself affair with farm fresh eggs custom cooked to perfection by staff member chatty and amiable Lynda. The inn keep/co owner, aspiring thespian John Felak was super welcoming and we thoroughly enjoyed his company.

The inn has recently added a conservatory/ greenhouse glass-style event venue designed to impeccable flawlessness with state of the art technology which is equally ideal for weddings, private parties or corporate meetings. It is named The Camilla in honor of the bed and breakfast’s notable flowers and designed by the renowned architecture firm of Virgo Gambill Architects. Coincidentally, they also designed the hotel’s added wing more than 30 years earlier when it first opened as a hotel in 1991.

We had great meals of pizza at Antonio’s and homemade pies (we recommend the Pineapple Cream!) and ate twice at Feedsack (first in North Augusta; the second time in Aiken where the restaurant got its start). It has a rustic bovine and equestrian decor and once weekly live jazz piano. The glazed salmon and fish & chips were sublime and dessert was oversized homemade cake.

Do not miss nearby Augusta’s barge trip and others that originate at the meticulously created National Heritage Area and Discovery Center on Augusta’s Riverwalk, running along the Savannah River. The barge ride is on an electric replica of the original Petersburg canal boats and runs several times on Saturdays – they generously waited for us as we got caught in holiday traffic coming from Atlanta.

It’s a soothingly beautiful slow moving hour ride down the river where similar barges which once carried thousands of bales of cotton, back then navigated by a man steering with a large pole. The soperific pace with nature watching includes a tour as we mosied past the behemoth Romanesque revival style Cotton Exchange Building and the fortress/ castle like buildings once the textile mills of bygone times when Augusta was a thriving trade hub.

We almost missed the gargantuan Neo Grecian Augusta Morris Museum of Art also located on the Riverwalk which celebrated such locally hailed celebs as soul man James Brown, actor Laurence Fishburne, singer Amy Grant and 28th President Woodrow Wilson whose boyhood home could  also be toured. Its many changing exhibits and 5,000 works in its permanent collection is apparently the oldest museum in the country devoted to the art and artists of The South.

John Felak
Lookaway Inn
103 W Forrest Ave.
North Augusta, SC 29841
803-426-1080
Info@lookawayinn.com
www.lookawayinn.com

Cathy Burroughs is a noted travel writer and blogger who travels throughout the historic South, nationally and all over Europe. She is published widely including The New York Times international supplement.