After much anticipation, our historic Inn, which has served as a gathering place for the community since its establishment, recently reopened after a remarkable renovation. Built in the best traditions of antebellum homes, the Inn at Brays Island is an exceptional historic house that brings gracious, warm hospitality of a bygone era into the very heart of life here. Today, the Georgian-style main house and adjacent carriage house function as a convenient 13 guest room inn for owners and their friends. With its stately living room, wood-paneled library and inviting bar and lounge area, the Inn is also a popular gathering place for all owners.
The circa-1930 house presiding over a bluff overlooking the Pocotaligo River, with its formal gardens, stately neo-Georgian brick architecture and demurely elegant interiors, bestows a civilizing sense of nostalgic grandeur to the 5,500 acres of bounteous nature that surrounds it.
Completed in a remarkably brief time period (just shy of six months), the renovation of the Inn and the adjacent Carriage House admirably testifies to the successful collaboration between the Brays Island community, Hill Construction and Tammy Connor Interior Design (both of Charleston). The result is a renovation that seems timeless and traditional, yet not in the least tired or stuffy. Rather, the Inn practically breathes comfort and relaxed elegance, just as one would expect from a traditional country house with a proud lineage.
Tammy Connor explains that when approaching a substantial historic structure such as the Inn, a designer should take her cues from the buildings architecture, its setting and its purpose rather than attempting to impose one’s will on the building. “I knew that I had to maintain the traditional elements of a classic Southern sporting estate,” says Connor, “but I also decided to add a dab of whimsy in each room to keep it from feeling too stiff or overly formal.”
Connor explains that the lifestyle of our community of owners helped provide cues. “In one room, I incorporated turtle shells into the décor.” While that may be an unexpected touch in a strictly traditional Georgian house, our community’s emphasis on the outdoors and the remarkable natural beauty that surrounds and sustains the Inn makes the presence of something like a turtle shell seems entirely fitting. The stage for such elements is set immediately with a dramatic wallpaper mural depicting a sporting scene. Connor brought in a muralist from Charleston to restore the mural. Tasteful taxidermy and sporting art scattered throughout add layers of décor traditionally associated with a Southern country house.
While the Inn offers daily breakfast and dinner every Sunday and alternating Saturdays, the primary function of the Inn is to provide lodging to owners and their guests. The Inn complex provides 13 guest rooms for that purpose. While the Inn proper features five upstairs bedrooms with completely modernized en suite baths, the adjacent carriage house contains eight suites. The result is a complex of building that feels rooted in time and place without sacrificing most of-the-moment luxuries and conveniences.
“The setting underneath the live oaks, and the way the house embodies the tradition of a grand Southern country estate, successfully strikes that balance between finery and the natural elements of the land,” said Tammy Connor. This new renovation ensures that the Inn will remain the epicenter of the South’s premier sporting community for generations to come.