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Rest your head at these three places in Southwest Virginia
By Tom Adkinson
October 28, 2022
The 36-room General Francis Marion Hotel helps anchor Main Street in Marion’s vibrant downtown. Image by Tom Adkinson
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MARION, Va. – Marion, just off I-81 in sparsely populated Southwest Virginia, has a bigger variety of lodging choices than you might expect.
Right in town are a historic hotel for a touch of class and a hostel aimed at Appalachian Trail hikers. Out in the country is a delightful farmstead B&B, where you can sleep in a round bed in a silo that overlooks green pastures and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
General Francis Marion Hotel
Marion’s historic property is the 36-room General Francis Marion Hotel, named for a Revolutionary War hero. It opened in 1927.
The hotel helps anchor a vibrant downtown, rare these days for a town of fewer than 6,000 residents. It is adjacent to another jewel, the 500-seat Lincoln Theatre, a restored 1920s movie palace now a popular concert venue.
The three guestroom levels have almost identical floor plans, with 12 rooms and suites of various configurations. The original design had 19 guestrooms and 13 bathrooms per floor. If you do the math, that doesn’t satisfy modern sensibilities, but that’s been solved – every room has facilities now.
Changes and renovations over the decades respected the past. Guestroom doors, woodwork and bathroom doors are all original. Some rooms have tables and chairs made of marble that originally covered radiators in public areas.
Tiles showing a cocktail-sipping rooster in the hotel’s Card Room are a secret message from Prohibition. Image by Tom Adkinson
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A mezzanine leads to a balcony overlooking Main Street, and the Card Room is a communal socializing spot. The hotel opened during America’s failed Prohibition experiment and carries a reminder of that era. Decorations in the floor include squares showing a rooster having a bubbly cocktail. That was code to the knowledgeable that bar service was available.
The ground floor features Puerto Nuevo, a restaurant whose menu emphasizes fresh seafood and Mexican cuisine.
The Merry Inn and Marion Outdoors are next-door neighbors catering to mountain hikers. Image by Tom Adkinson
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The Merry Inn has space for 10 guests – eight in bunk beds and two in private rooms. Image by Tom Adkinson
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The Merry Inn
Down Main Street is the Merry Inn (a great play on words in a town named Marion), a hikers’ hostel that can sleep 10 (8 bunks and 2 private rooms). It complements Marion Outdoors, a store devoted to serious backpackers and their equipment needs.
The Merry Inn’s core market is hikers on the nearby Appalachian Trail, plus hikers who travel shorter distances at Grayson Highland State Park, Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and other sites in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Mount Rogers, at 5,740 feet, is Virginia’s highest point, and the 200,000-acre national recreation area is famous for its wild ponies.
Although hikers are the Merry Inn’s primary guests, groups can rent the entire space and have a base of operations to explore the region.
Appalachian Trail hikers benefit from recuperative time off of the 2,190-mile route (five to six months for those who tackle it all at once), and they have multiple dining options nearby. A novelty of hostels such as the Merry Inn is a rack of loaner clothes. When through-hikers check in, often every stitch of their clothing goes into the washer. The loaner rack means they can dress, but not necessarily in GQ style, and explore the town.
It requires imagination to picture how dilapidated Dream Rock Silo was before becoming a home and B&B. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Dream Rock Silo
While the Merry Inn is spartan and utilitarian, Dream Rock Silo occupies the other end of the spectrum.
This three-room B&B is the height of country hospitality, although owners Karen and Bill Simpson didn’t originally intend to have guests. The culmination of their work transforming a dilapidated barn into a house proved too pretty not to share.
Karen recalls that she fell in love when she first saw the barn and the silo that was open to the sky. She took a rock from the creek on the property and kept it as her “dream rock” until she and Bill could buy the place – and begin the daunting transformation.
The core structure first was a dairy barn, then a gigantic chicken barn and then a tobacco barn before rebirth as their home. Bill is an architect and cabinetmaker, and Karen has an artistic streak, and they had space for more than their home.
The red silo was the crowning touch. Inside is a spiral staircase leading first to a sitting and entertainment room and continuing to a top-level bedroom. Yes, the king-sized bed is round, and Karen says she reworks regular sheets to fit just right.
Cattle-filled pastures and the Blue Ridge Mountains are the view from the deck of Dream Rock Silo. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Two non-silo rooms complete the inventory. The Creekside Bungalow (queen bed/full kitchen) faces the creek where Karen took her dream rock, and the Rustic Rooster Room (two queen beds) is laden with rooster artwork.
Across the creek is a chicken coup with about 30 laying hens. B&B guests get fresh eggs and make their own breakfasts. Guests in the silo or the Rustic Rooster Room use an outdoor kitchen on the barn’s deck.
Dream Rock Silo is 38 miles from Marion, close to the little town of Independence and not far from Grayson Highlands State Park and the North Carolina line.
Trip-planning resources: VisitSmythCountyVA.com, GFMhotel.com, MarionOutdoors.com and DreamRockSilo.com
(Travel writer Tom Adkinson’s book, 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die, is available on Amazon.com.
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