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Cozy up in the airy French House Cottage.
(Photo: Courtesy of Airbnb) |
Stay in historical style at the nine-room Graystone Inn (from $159), a neoclassical, Indiana-limestone mansion built in 1901. Though the residence once served as a boarding house and an American Legion Post, it now calls to mind an elegant Southern estate, thanks to a complete renovation in 2006. Guest rooms have four-poster beds, Victorian claw-foot tubs, and Chippendale writing desks. Start each morning in the English-manor-style dining room with a breakfast of homemade dishes like blueberry johnnycakes, key-lime-stuffed French toast, and ginger-pear pancakes.
Live like a local at the French House Cottage ($185), a homey two-bedroom rental originally built in the 1850s as the detached kitchen of a shoe merchant’s house (which has, itself, been turned into the French House Bed and Breakfast). Unlike the typical froufrou historic-district inn, the Airbnb cottage feels more like a shabby-chic country escape, with a clean palette of whites and creams, weathered peasant armoires, brass chandeliers, and claw-foot tubs, plus patriotic paintings and etchings (think American flags and bald eagles). Outside, spend a lazy afternoon on the simple porch swing under the shade of surrounding trees.
Luxuriate in the grandeur of the Old South at the Verandas (from $169), a renovated Victorian Italianate mansion originally constructed by a Confederate shipbuilder. The eight uniquely decorated guest rooms reflect the owners’ global travels: Ask for the Asian-inspired queen room, with Chinese rugs and antique Persian prints purchased at Spain’s El Escorial. Climb the spiral staircase to the enclosed cupola above the building’s fourth floor for a scenic panorama of downtown Wilmington, and head down to the gardens or four namesake porches for a free glass of wine before dinner.