Historic Inns & Hotels in West Virginia

The regions

Where to stay, by region

Eastern Panhandle

In Harpers Ferry, The Town’s Inn fills two stone houses on High Street in Lower Town, inside Harpers Ferry National Historical Park: Michael Doran’s Greek Revival Heritage House of about 1840 and the Federal-style Mountain House of about 1820. Shepherdstown’s Thomas Shepherd Inn is an 1869 brick house that the inn says was St. Peter’s Lutheran Church’s parsonage for nearly 70 years; it has been an inn since 1984 and takes guests 18 and over. In Charles Town, the Carriage Inn, which the inn dates to 1836, was Gen. Philip Sheridan’s headquarters in 1864. Berkeley Springs has three: The Country Inn of Berkeley Springs, built as the Park View Inn in 1933 beside Berkeley Springs State Park; the Mendenhall 1884 Inn, a five-room B&B in a Queen Anne house individually listed on the National Register; and, in Cacapon Resort State Park south of town, the CCC’s 1935 log Old Inn, rented whole through WV State Parks.

Potomac Highlands

Elkins has two: the Graceland Inn, the Queen Anne sandstone mansion Senator Henry Gassaway Davis first occupied in 1892, now a National Historic Landmark run as an inn by Davis & Elkins College, and the Tygart Hotel, which opened downtown in 1906 as the Hotel Gassaway and reopened after an $18 million-plus restoration. The rest are state-park stays booked through WV State Parks. At Cass, a lumber company town listed on the National Register as a historic district, the state rents restored company houses that sleep 2 to 14. Lost River State Park has 15 CCC cabins of chestnut logs from about 1935, and Watoga, the state’s largest park, has CCC cabins of about 1935 alongside eight deluxe cabins added in 1955.

Greenbrier Valley

At White Sulphur Springs, The Greenbrier, a National Historic Landmark, puts guests in the seven-story Georgian hotel the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway opened in 1913, in its North and Virginia wings of 1930–31 and West Wing of 1954, and in the cottage rows that were the resort’s original guest lodgings, dating from about 1800 to the 1860s. In Lewisburg, The General Lewis Inn joins John Withrow’s 1834 brick house, now its east wing and dining room, to a 1920s hotel wing; the inn says the Hock family ran it as a hotel from 1929 until Sparrow and Aaron Huffman bought it. At Greenbrier State Forest, only cabins 4–7 of the 14 date from the CCC, about 1938; book one of them through WV State Parks between April and October.

New River Gorge

In Fayetteville, The Historic Morris Harvey House Inn is the three-story Queen Anne house R. H. Dickinson built in 1902 for Confederate veteran Morris Harvey; the National Register calls it the first house in the area with indoor plumbing, and breakfast is a light self-service continental. On the Upper Kanawha, The Glen Ferris Inn, a brick house on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike overlooking Kanawha Falls, was licensed as an ordinary in 1839 and served as a Union quartermaster’s depot for several months in 1861; around 1910 it gained a third story and a wraparound veranda.

Mountaineer Country

In downtown Morgantown, Hotel Morgan opened with a gala on October 16, 1925, named for town founder Zackquill Morgan at the request of the Monongalia Historical Society. Eleanor Roosevelt spent the night of December 15, 1934 there on her way to the Arthurdale homestead project in Preston County. Fully renovated in 2020, it has 83 rooms, and guests with cars must use valet parking.

Mid-Ohio Valley

In downtown Parkersburg, The Blennerhassett opened on May 6, 1889, built during the oil and gas boom by Col. William Nelson Chancellor, twice mayor and president of the First National Bank, which operated inside the hotel into the 1910s. It had become apartments by the late 1970s, survived a 1979 fire and was revived from 1980; renovations reduced about 104 rooms to 82, and the hotel says it became a Giovanni Hotel and Spa in 2026.

Before you book

Planning your stay

State-park stays

Five of our stays belong to West Virginia State Parks and book through the state’s reservation site: the company houses at Cass, the CCC cabins at Lost River, Watoga and Greenbrier State Forest, and the Old Inn at Cacapon Resort State Park. Not every cabin is historic, so book by number: at Lost River the CCC cabins are 1–6, 8–13, 19, 21 and 24, and at Greenbrier State Forest only cabins 4–7 date from the CCC. At Watoga, eight deluxe cabins were added in 1955, so confirm the cabin number when you book. The Old Inn is rented whole: 12 bedrooms with shared baths and a full kitchen, sleeping up to 32.

Seasons

Greenbrier State Forest’s cabins open from April to October. At Watoga, the classic and vacation cabins are open year-round and the legacy cabins from April to October; the state doesn’t say which category holds the CCC cabins.

Before you book

Ask where your room is: The Country Inn has rooms in a separate 1980s building as well as the 1930s inn, and The General Lewis Inn joins its 1834 house to a 1920s hotel wing. Check the age rules: the Thomas Shepherd Inn takes guests 18 and over, and the Carriage Inn welcomes children over 12 with adult supervision. For pets, The Greenbrier takes cats and dogs up to 30 pounds in designated rooms for a $250 fee per bedroom per stay, The Blennerhassett takes up to two dogs, and Lost River’s pet-friendly cabins include CCC cabins 1, 2, 5 and 6; the Thomas Shepherd Inn and Hotel Morgan take no pets. Hotel Morgan requires valet parking, $22 a night, for guests with cars, and guests at The Town’s Inn in Harpers Ferry park in the National Park Service and train-station lots.

Accessibility

Three of the Cass company houses are wheelchair-accessible, the Tygart Hotel lists ADA rooms, and The Blennerhassett has an elevator.

Ways in

Themes in West Virginia

The Greenbrier and the springs towns

White Sulphur Springs was a summer resort for wealthy Southerners from the early 1800s, and the row cottages facing The Greenbrier’s main hotel were its original guest lodgings; Robert E. Lee stayed in Baltimore Row’s ‘G’ cottage, now known as Lee Cottage, in the late 1860s. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway bought the resort in 1910 and opened Frederick Junius Sterner’s Georgian hotel in 1913, and the old Grand Central Hotel, ‘the Old White’, was demolished in 1922. The hotel became Ashford General Hospital in 1942, and after the C&O bought it back in 1947, Dorothy Draper redecorated every interior. In Berkeley Springs, The Country Inn stands on the site of the Strother family’s 500-room Berkeley Springs Hotel, which burned in 1898, and the Mendenhall 1884 Inn went up in the town’s post-Civil War building boom.

CCC cabins in the state parks

CCC Company 1525 set up Camp Watoga on June 18, 1933, and Civilian Conservation Corps crews went on to build roads, trails and overnight cabins in the new parks. At Cacapon, Company 1523 built the two-story log Old Inn in 1935 from locally sourced logs, stone and sand, and the National Register nomination calls it the first lodge in West Virginia’s park system. Lost River’s cabins are chestnut logs on stone foundations, many still with original corner cupboards and cane-seat chairs, and Greenbrier State Forest’s four CCC cabins of about 1938 are round logs with saddle notching and stone chimneys. Watoga, Cacapon and Lost River all opened to the public on July 1, 1937.

Eastern Panhandle towns, from Harpers Ferry to Berkeley Springs

In Harpers Ferry, The Town’s Inn fills two stone houses inside Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and the brick chimney tops of Michael Doran’s Heritage House are thought to show Civil War damage. Shepherdstown’s Thomas Shepherd Inn takes its name, with his descendants’ blessing, from the town’s founder, and in Charles Town the Carriage Inn was Gen. Philip Sheridan’s headquarters during the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign; the district’s National Register nomination says Grant and Sheridan met there to plan it. In Berkeley Springs, The Country Inn and the Mendenhall 1884 Inn stand in the Town of Bath Historic District, and the CCC’s Old Inn is in Cacapon Resort State Park south of town.

Railroad, timber and boom-town hotels

Railroads, timber and oil money shaped several of these stays. Senator Henry Gassaway Davis, a co-founder of Elkins and the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1904, first occupied Graceland in 1892, and the Hotel Gassaway, now the Tygart Hotel, rose in 1906 on land he had set aside. At Cass, the lumber company began building houses for its workers in 1901, and the town was named in 1902 for Joseph K. Cass, board chairman of the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. In Parkersburg, Col. William Nelson Chancellor built The Blennerhassett during the oil and gas boom, opening it in 1889, and in the first half of the 1900s The Glen Ferris Inn housed managers and workers of the Kanawha Valley’s chemical and hydroelectric industries.

Road trip

Harpers Ferry to The Greenbrier, inn to inn

Harpers Ferry

Start at The Town’s Inn, two stone houses of about 1820 and 1840 in Lower Town, or stay in Charles Town at the Carriage Inn or in Shepherdstown at the Thomas Shepherd Inn.

Berkeley Springs

Stay a block from the warm springs at the Mendenhall 1884 Inn or at The Country Inn; a group of up to 32 can rent the CCC’s 1935 Old Inn at Cacapon Resort State Park.

Elkins

Choose the Graceland Inn, Senator Henry Gassaway Davis’s 1892 mansion on the Davis & Elkins College campus, or the Tygart Hotel, opened downtown in 1906 as the Hotel Gassaway.

White Sulphur Springs

End at The Greenbrier, in the 1913 hotel or a cottage on Paradise, South Carolina, Baltimore or Tansas Row, or in Lewisburg at The General Lewis Inn.

Context

History and architecture

Virginia’s western counties refused to follow the state’s 1861 secession and were admitted to the Union as West Virginia on June 20, 1863, and the oldest lodgings here predate statehood. White Sulphur Springs drew wealthy Southerners from the early 1800s, and The Greenbrier still rents the cottage rows that were the resort’s original guest lodgings, from Paradise Row, dated to about 1800 in its National Historic Landmark nomination, to Tansas Row of the 1860s. John Withrow built his Lewisburg house, now part of The General Lewis Inn, in 1834; in 1839 Aaron Stockton was licensed to run an ordinary in what is now The Glen Ferris Inn, on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike; and President James K. Polk stayed in 1848 at the Berkeley Springs Hotel, on the site of today’s Country Inn. The Civil War left its mark: The Glen Ferris Inn was a Union quartermaster’s depot in 1861, and Gen. Philip Sheridan made his 1864 headquarters in what is now the Carriage Inn. In the decades after the war, Berkeley Springs’ post-war building boom produced the Mendenhall 1884 Inn’s house, oil and gas money built The Blennerhassett in Parkersburg in 1889, Senator Henry Gassaway Davis moved into Graceland at Elkins in 1892, a lumber company began building company houses at Cass in 1901, and the Hotel Gassaway, now the Tygart Hotel, opened in 1906. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway opened The Greenbrier’s main hotel in 1913, and Morgantown businessmen opened Hotel Morgan in 1925. In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps built the log Old Inn at Cacapon and rental cabins there and at Lost River, Watoga and Greenbrier State Forest, and the first three parks opened to the public on July 1, 1937.