Historic Hotels & Inns in Richmond

The neighborhoods

Where to stay, by area

Downtown & Capitol Square

Capitol Square is downtown’s government heart: the Virginia State Capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson, and the Executive Mansion stand on the square, and GRTC’s Government Center Pulse station serves City Hall and the General Assembly. The Commonwealth (901 Bank St.) opened here as the Hotel Rueger on November 5, 1913, on the site of Louis Rueger’s 1846 tavern, and Historic Hotels of America calls it the closest hotel to the Capitol. Toward the James River are the Canal Walk, the American Civil War Museum at Tredegar Iron Works and Brown’s Island, the gateway to the James River Park System.

Broad Street & the Arts District

Broad Street is downtown’s main corridor, and Visit Richmond calls its Arts District a ‘gallery of galleries’, with a block party on the First Friday of every month near the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU and The National concert hall. Quirk Hotel Richmond (201 W. Broad St.), an art hotel since 2015 with a rooftop bar, fills the 1916 J.B. Mosby & Co. dry-goods store. Farther east, Hilton Richmond Downtown (501 E. Broad St.) occupies the 1922 Miller & Rhoads department store, with its 1885 Cafe and Market in the store’s former Tea Room. The fare-free GRTC Pulse runs along Broad, with Arts District and Convention Center stations.

Franklin Street & Monroe Ward

Franklin Street, which Visit Richmond’s ghost-walk listing calls once the most elegant address in Richmond, has two of the five hotels, both in Monroe Ward: The Jefferson (101 W. Franklin St.), Lewis Ginter’s Beaux-Arts hotel, opened on October 31, 1895, and Linden Row Inn (100 E. Franklin St.), with 70 rooms in Greek Revival row houses built in 1847–53 and restored as an inn in 1988. Linden Row lists VCU, the State Capitol and the Executive Mansion within walking distance. Monroe Ward is inside the city’s Downtown Central Business District, so meters and peak-hour tow zones apply; The Jefferson has its own lot on Adams Street.

The Fan, Church Hill & Shockoe

No verified inn is in these neighborhoods, but they hold much of the sightseeing. The Fan is an 85-block Victorian neighborhood beside VCU with more than 80 one-of-a-kind restaurants and an Allison Street Pulse station. In Church Hill, a historic district of antebellum homes and cobblestoned streets, St. John’s Church is where Patrick Henry gave his ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ speech in 1775. Below it, cobblestoned Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom hold Main Street Station (1901), the 17th Street Farmers Market, the Poe Museum, the Virginia Holocaust Museum and the entry point to the Virginia Capital Trail, which runs to Williamsburg.

Before you book

Planning your stay

Getting around

Richmond International Airport (RIC) is about nine miles from The Jefferson, the hotel says, and GRTC’s fare-free Routes 7A and 7B run from the airport’s upper departures deck to the Downtown Transfer Station every 15 minutes. Amtrak has two Richmond stations: Main Street Station (1500 E. Main St., in Shockoe Bottom) is downtown but gets only three daily Northeast Regional trains, while Staples Mill Road (7519 Staples Mill Rd.), about six miles northwest in Henrico County and Virginia’s busiest Amtrak stop, also handles the long-distance and Norfolk trains, so check which station your train uses. Downtown is walkable, and the fare-free GRTC Pulse runs between Rocketts Landing and Willow Lawn every 10 minutes at weekday peaks (15 to 30 minutes otherwise), stopping at Main Street Station, Government Center, Convention Center, Arts District and VCU & VUU. The Pulse’s Staples Mill stop on Broad Street is not the Amtrak station.

Parking

The City runs about 20 lots and garages plus meters at $2.50 an hour (up from $2 on July 7, 2025), payable by app, with limits of 15 minutes to 3 hours; some downtown streets become tow-away zones on weekdays from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. Under the rates effective July 1, 2025, the 2nd & Grace garage charges $2.50 an hour with a $10 daily maximum, and the 5th & Marshall and 7th & Marshall garages $6 an hour with a $20 maximum. The Jefferson charges $38 a night for valet and $20 for self-parking; Linden Row’s FAQ mentions only street parking, so ask the Quirk, the Hilton and The Commonwealth for their rates.

When to go

Historic Garden Week in Virginia is run statewide by the Garden Club of Virginia’s member clubs; in 2026 the Executive Mansion on Capitol Square opened for it on Friday, April 24. The free, three-day Richmond Folk Festival puts six stages on the downtown riverfront in October (October 9–11 in 2026; 2027 dates weren’t posted when we checked). Summers are hot and humid, with a July normal high of 89.5°F at the airport. For the holidays, The Jefferson puts a 30-foot tree in its Rotunda, with decorations up from November 30, 2026 through January 3, 2027.

Accessibility

The Jefferson has accessible rooms (six Grand Premier Kings, one Grand Premier Queen and one Ginter Suite), unobstructed elevators to the guest floors and accessible spaces in its Adams Street and Main Street lots, though the restrooms off the Rotunda are not wheelchair accessible; Linden Row has three accessible rooms. The Pulse stops only at platform-level stations with front-door ADA boarding. In the Downtown Central Business District, which covers Monroe Ward and the Capitol area, placard holders must pay at metered disabled spaces and are limited to two hours. Church Hill’s and Shockoe’s streets are cobblestoned. We couldn’t confirm accessibility at the Quirk, the Hilton or The Commonwealth, so ask before you book.

Before you book

Book The Jefferson’s holiday season early: Santa Tea reservations opened October 7, and Lemaire’s Thanksgiving dinner had sold out by October 21, 2026. The Jefferson takes cancellations until 4 p.m. ET the day before arrival and requires guests to be 21 to check in without a parent. Visit Richmond lists its Bed and Breakfast Package from $395 a night for a Premier room, with breakfast for two, gratuities and parking. We found no website for The Commonwealth; book it through Historic Hotels of America.