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The slow, leisurely days of summer are about to slip by us as we welcome the fall season with open arms in Aiken. Our town begins to come alive again as the heat waves roll away and are instead replaced with cool mornings and 70 degree days. Social calendars begin to fill up in advance with everything from afternoons at Whitney Field to weekends spent perusing local arts festivals.

However you choose to experience Aiken this fall, we know that you’re going to love the variety of activities that there are for you to enjoy. Planning a trip? We can help you pick out the perfect weekend to come to town based on what you and your travel companions like to do on a weekend getaway.

We’ve rounded up just a few of our favorite things happening in town this fall:

Aiken’s Makin’
September 6-7, 2019
For 43 years, Aiken’s Makin’ has been gracing the streets of historic downtown Aiken with their two day arts and crafts festival. Local artists and vendors showcase everything from jewelry, ceramics, and pottery to wood-crafts, furniture, toys, and more for you to shop.
Click here for more information.

Oktoberfest
September 21, 2019
This year, you don’t have to travel to Germany or even to Europe to experience Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest—traditionally a 16-18 day folk festival held in Bavaria, Germany from mid September to the first weekend of October—is a perfect excuse to get together with friends and enjoy time together outside in a biergarten. Did you know? Oktoberfest have been held annually around the world since 1810!
Click here for more information.

Fall Steeplechase
October 26, 2019
Easily the highlight of the fall social calendar, the Fall Steeplechase is the event to go to in the fall in Aiken. This family friendly event includes six steeplechase races around the track, a day of tailgating, a carriage parade, and a Village of Shops that you can peruse at your leisure throughout the day. There are even stick horse races for kids of all ages! It’s a wonderful way to spend the day with your family and friends as you socialize and watch the races.
Click here for more information.

Blessing of the Hounds
November 28, 2019
Start off your Thanksgiving Day festivities with one of Aiken’s most time honored traditions: the Blessing of the Hounds. Held at 11am on Thanksgiving morning each year, The Blessing immediately precedes the the Aiken Hounds’ formal Opening Meet. The traditional ceremony is open to the public in Hitchcock Woods, and lasting just 30 minutes, it’s a great event for the entire family to enjoy.
Click here for more information.

Which event are you most looking forward to this fall? We know that we can’t choose just one—you can bet that you’ll find us at each one of these events this season. We hope to see you out there!

Deep in the woods, we find enhanced fitness, accelerated healing, increased mental focus, and improved biological responses to reducing stress and disease. Groundbreaking scientific research has found that trees and plants emit airborne compounds called phytoncides. These compounds have anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties, and when inhaled, they simulate white blood cells to produce cells that fight against disease. In Japan, they call this shinrin-yoku or forest bathing.

What exactly is forest bathing? Per TIME Magazine, forest bathing is “bathing in the forest atmosphere, or taking in the forest through our senses.” It isn’t an outdoor activity like riding your horse through Hitchcock Woods or even attending one of the summer concert series in the gardens. It’s a quieter, more relaxed activity where you leave behind your phone and your camera, turn off all outside distractions, and simply allow for your senses to experience the outdoors.

Two of our favorite places in Aiken to go to experience nature are Hitchcock Woods and Hopelands Gardens. Hitchcock Woods, one of the largest urban forests in the entire country, is filled with over 70 miles of trails that you can enjoy by hoof, by foot, or by bike. The key with forest bathing though is that you’ll need to sit down and experience nature silence, so we suggest exploring the woods by foot so that once you find the perfect spot, you can easily sit down and settle in for a few peaceful moments. Take a deep breath and breathe in everything that nature has to offer your senses.

In Hopelands Gardens, you can walk down one of the pathways until you find a secluded corner of the garden where you can retreat from the outside world to allow for you senses to fully explore the gardens. Breathe in the fresh, floral scent of the flowers that are blooming all around you. Listen to the low buzz of the bumblebees as they flit from flower to flower and the chirping of the birds. Reach out and feel the leaves of the ivy growing all around you.

The key to forest bathing is finding a spot that’s just right for you. Where are your favorite spots to experience nature in Aiken? We’d love to see your photos! Tag us in your forest bathing adventures this summer on social media by tagging @thewillcox and #thewillcox.

Read more about forest bathing in Time Magazine’s article here.

We invite you to join us by the pool this month for an exciting new craft beer release party!

Aiken’s own Bobby Hottenson, a partner of Nicaragua Craft Beer Co, is introducing South Carolina to their flagship beer on Tuesday, June 18th. This will be a tasting event with a special food menu created by our Chef Ed and will be out by our pool. You’re welcome to sample the beer, enjoy the food, and even jump in our pool for an evening swim!

Bobby, along with partners Brendan DeBlois and Matt Greenberg, moved to South America and brought the first brewery to Nicaragua in 2013 in Nicaragua’s most famous beach town, San Juan del Sur. They started with three flagship beers—the Boom IPA, Nicarao Wheat Beer, and Popoyo Passion Fruit Ale—and have since expanded. We’re excited that they have chosen The Willcox as where they would like to introduce our state to their fantastic craft beer.

If you are a craft beer connoisseur or if you want to keep the Father’s Day celebrations going for your craft beer loving father, this is one event that you won’t want to miss. Be among the first in our state to try out this delicious new beer!

How do you plan the ultimate vacation when you’re ready for a getaway, ready to explore a new place, or ready to escape somewhere for ultimate relaxation?

One of our favorite travel resources, Condé Nast Traveler, has all of the information you could ever need when it comes to discovering a new, exciting place to travel to. They provide inspiration, new destinations to explore, information on places to stay, a peek into the style and culture of where you’re headed, and food and drink information for you to peruse. It’s a one stop shop for all of the details you need to plan the best vacation.

Our team at The Willcox is truly honored to be on the ballot again this year for the Condé Nast Traveler 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards. These prestigious awards only feature the best around the world. They highlight everything from the best hotels to the best ski resorts, best train journeys, and best airports. It’s an all-encompassing list that will spark your imagination for planning your next trip.

As a valued guest of The Willcox, we would sincerely appreciate your vote in the Condé Nast Traveler 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards. Voting is open until June 30th and it’s a simple process to share what you loved about your visit with us. You’ll even be entered to win a dream trip when you vote!

We are very grateful for your support and look forward to welcoming you back to The Willcox again soon!

This Earth Day, we wanted to take a moment to highlight the ways that we are committed to minimizing our overall impact on the environment.

Our team makes every effort to conserve water and energy at The Willcox, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality, and minimizing waste. One way that we work to minimize waste is through our partnership with Clean the World, an organization that provides recycled soap products and educational materials to impoverished families around the globe.

Fast Facts:

• According to the World Health Organization, millions of young lives could be saved with access to bar soap and basic hygiene education. Pneumonia and diarrheal disease are two of the leading causes of death among children under 5 years old.
• Hotels throw away over 2 million bars of partially used soap every dayin the United States

Source: https://cleantheworld.org/#

At The Willcox, our team donates all of our used solid and liquid soap amenities to Clean the World. The bars of soap are sanitized, grinder, and cut into new bars that are then boxed for distribution to impoverished communities around the globe. How cool is that? Instead of ending up in a landfill, our used soaps gain a second life through Clean the World and go to someone who truly needs it.

Clean the World does more than just recycle soap products and distribute them around the globe. They also educate children and their families on proper hygiene, starting with how to effectively wash hands. In Las Vegas, Clean the World has started a new program aimed to provide the basic comfort and dignity of cleanliness to their homeless population. Their Fresh Start Mobile Showers do more than just provide a shower—they connect the homeless with organizations that can help put them on the path to self-sufficiency.

We are proud to partner with Clean the World! What Green Practices are you participating in to help our world this Earth Day?

Three years ago, Southern Living launched their South’s Best Awards which allowed their readers to celebrate the people and places that they love the most in the South. From BBQ joints to beach towns, food cities, and more, readers across the country weighed in on their favorite places to visit, dine, and stay. Last year, in the 2nd edition of the Southern Living South’s Best Awards, our hometown of Aiken took home the title of “Best Small Town in the South” and The Willcox was listed as the #2 Hotel in the South. We were beyond honored to have received such an outstanding award alongside our hometown.

Our past-guests and our community of Aiken rallied around us this year, and through their voting efforts, they vaulted us to the top spot for 2019. We are pleased to announce that The Willcox was named the Best Hotel in the South!

“At Southern Living, we’re passionate about celebrating the extraordinary people and places that define Southern hospitality,” said Sid Evans, the Editor in Chief of Southern Living. “Our goal is to identify the destinations our readers are loving the most right now—places that represent the very best of the South. This year’s awards represent a unique mix of newcomers and longtime favorites.”

We are honored to be named Southern Living’s South’s Best Hotel for 2019, and we are joined on the list of Best Hotels in the South by some prestigious company in the hospitality industry:

1 – The Willcox, Aiken, SC
2 – The Inn on Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC
3 – The Peabody Memphis, Memphis, TN
4 – Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans, LA
5 – The Jefferson Hotel, Richmond, VA
6 – The Roosevelt, New Orleans, LA
7 – Belmond Charleston Place, Charleston, SC
8 – The Brown Hotel, Louisville, KY
9 – 21c Museum Hotel, Louisville, KY
10 – Williamsburg Inn, Williamsburg, VA

Congratulations to all of our hotel and inn friends across the South, and a special thank you to all of our guests who voted for us! Your vote means the world to us, and to us, you are the South’s Best Guests!

If you haven’t had the opportunity to come and stay with us at The Willcox yet, we invite you to come experience why we were voted as the South’s Best Hotel this spring. Book your stay with us, make an appointment in our full-service Salon and Spa, enjoy fine dining in our restaurant, and explore all that our wonderful hometown of Aiken has to offer to you. We promise that you, like the readers of Southern Living, will be enchanted by our hotel and charmed by our small Southern town.

Did you know?

Aiken, South Carolina, has a long, storied history with trains and railroads that dates back to the early 1800s. It all began when Captain William White Williams, a cotton merchant from Charleston, South Carolina, built a house in western South Carolina where Aiken is today. He began looking for a fast, cheap way to get his cotton back to Charleston and with his business associates, created the South Carolina Railway and Canal Company. The goal was to have a railroad that would go from the cotton fields in Hamburg straight through to Charleston.

The surveyors for the future railroad determined that it was impossible to get any closer than 15 miles out from the cotton fields due to the surrounding steep grade. Captain Williams would still have the additional expenses of hauling his cotton across land by wagon to the train. Luckily, as local legend has it, one of the surveyors was smitten with Captain Williams’s daughter and in order to win her hand in marriage, he found a way to get the railroad directly to Captain Williams’s cotton fields. At the time it was completed in 1833, the railway that traveled from Charleston, South Carolina through Aiken and ending in Hamburg was the the world’s longest railway.

As the town grew, so did it’s recognition around the country as a wonderful place to go during the winter. Aiken became known as the “Winter Colony,” and the place for wealthy New York socialites to travel to to escape their brutal northern winters in the late 1800s. These socialites that traveled to Aiken championed and supported the building of newer, bigger train depot and in 1899, an elaborate and beautiful one was built in the middle of town.

More and more visitors began to flock to Aiken during the winter months, all traveling down to South Carolina by train. One of the most popular visitors along this railway was President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who often passed through Aiken on his way to Georgia for polio treatments. Roosevelt had a mistress who lived just blocks away from our hotel, and when he’d travel down south, he’d have his presidential train stop on the tracks just behind our hotel where he’d get off the train and check in to his favorite suite in the hotel.

Although the railway adjacent to our hotel is no longer used by the presidential train or by the northern socialites of the 1800s, there is still plenty of activity along these train tracks. You may have noticed the work happening along the railroad bed behind The Willcox. The trees and greenery that were on the bank of the railroad tracks have been removed and manmade support was added to the embankment that our hotel sits on. This work, completed by Johson, Laschober & Associates, is work that was vital to the stabilization of our building and to securing it’s future for years to come. Thanks to the City of Aiken and the Historic Railroad Cut Stabilization Project, we can rest assured that our hotel is sitting on the most stable ground possible and is in no danger.

Railroads have a long, storied history in our town and we’re pleased to know that they, like our building, will be in Aiken for years to come. Learn more about the history of railroads in Aiken by visiting the Aiken Railroad Depot—a replica of the original depot that’s located in the exact same spot as the one built in 1899.

Whether it is your first Valentine’s Day together or your 50th one together, we have created a romantic experience at The Willcox that would be perfect to enjoy with your significant other. Let us handle all of the details—all you need to do is pack your bags and be prepared to be swept away from the moment you walk through our front doors. Plan a staycation or a one-night getaway vacation to celebrate the holiday this year.

During our Valentine’s Escape month, you and your love can enjoy:

• One-night stay
• Two Godiva chocolate martinis upon arrival
• Chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne at turndown
• Cooked to Order breakfast for two served in ed
• Late checkout upon request when available
• Complimentary Wi-Fi

Rates starting at $125 per person, based on double occupancy

You can add in a tailored option that will truly enhance your experience and make it the best Valentine’s Day yet.

• One Dozen Red Roses – surprise your love with a dozen red roses waiting in your room upon your arrival ($120)
• Couples Massage – side by side, enjoy a simultaneous massage in our spa (rates beginning at $160 / person)
• LOVE Bath Butler – designed to balance the heart chakra, this sensual, candlelit ritual evokes a deep sense of comfort, inviting you to indulge all of your senses. Cool rose-scented face towels, rose massage oil, champagne, and chocolate-dipped strawberries round out this truly romantic experience ($100)

What a year it has been for The Greystone Inn and The Willcox in 2018!

It was with great excitement we welcomed The Greystone into our family this year.  After being closed for four years, our team worked morning, noon and night to completely renovate and breathe new life into this beautiful mountain retreat on the shores of Lake Toxaway.  On May 9^th, The Greystone Inn once again opened her doors and what an incredible 7 months it has been!

The inn has welcomed both those who have been longtime guests of The Greystone and those who ventured to Lake Toxaway for the very first time. We’re honored to have had so many guests in our first year of being open! It has been a joy to watch new visitors fall in love with the grace and beauty found here, and we have thoroughly enjoyed hearing the old stories from guests who have vacationed at The Greystone for years.  We were honored to receive the Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator 2018 and to have been nominated for Travel + Leisures World’s Best awards in our first year of business!

It’s been a pleasure to meet so many people from our community and the surrounding area.  We’ve enjoyed watching The Greystone become a place for locals to gather, break bread and celebrate.  We were grateful for the opportunity to donate to over 25 local charitable events including sponsoring Transylvania County’s Sesame Street in Communities initiative and partnering with Lake Toxaway charities to insure less fortunate families in our community were well taken care of this holiday season.  We have hosted 8 brides, 10 corporate retreats, cooking classes with Southern Livings Rebecca Lang, a Halloween party with Dracul author Dacre Stoker, trivia nights, musicians and so much more.    We’re overwhelmed with gratitude for how kindly we’ve been welcomed into the area.

In Aiken, The Willcox had a wonderful year as well. Our lobby has been established as Aiken’s Living Room – a place where our community comes to unwind, to catch up with friends, and to enjoy live music. In the beginning of January, we will complete a beautiful refurbishment of our grand lobby. Our lobby will be as inviting as ever, and we’re excited to share it with you.  We continue to update and refresh our guestrooms and are thrilled at the excitement our guests express when they notice new tile, new carpet, wall paper and furnishings.

We’re honored to have received the Award of Excellence – Wine Spectator 2018, voted No. 2 Best Hotel in the South – Southern Living Magazine’s South Best Awards 2018, voted No. 5 Top Hotels in The South Reader’s Choice awards Conde Nast 2018 and No. 10 in the Top 10 Resort Hotels in the American South Travel + Leisure!   And, how grateful we are to the City of Aiken for their effort in stabilizing the embankment behind The Willcox, securing her future for generations to come.

From our restaurant to our spa, guests have enjoyed world class dining and spa treatments throughout the year. Our team has provided exceptional service to every guest, including the 32 different companies that hosted their meetings and retreats with us and the 28 couples that chose to celebrate their special day at our historic hotel.

This incredible year would not have been possible without the overwhelming support of our Willcox and Greystone families, nor without the hard work and dedication our team brings to the hotel each and every day. We are so grateful for everyone that has supported both The Greystone and The Willcox this year!

From our family and team to yours, we wish you all the best this holiday season and we look forward to hosting you in the new year!

 

• Our Elf Tuck-In is a truly magical experience for children staying at The Willcox. You can have one of Santa’s elves bring milk and cookies to your room, tuck your child in, and read them a bedtime Christmas story.
• Make sure that your room is looking extra special during December, and add a festive Christmas tree to your room.
• Gather around the fire, and roast a marshmallow or two for homemade s’mores. We’ll reserve seating around the fire for you, and provide everything you need for creating your delectable treat!

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• • On Sunday December 2, December 9, and December 16 from 6pm until 8pm, grab a drink from our bar and join us in the lobby as Brooke Lundy and John Vaughn enchant us with Christmas carols from the 1930s to the 1960s. You’ll feel like you’ve been transported to Christmas in another era!
  • Santa and Mrs. Claus will be making a magical appearance on Wednesday, December 12, for our Toys for Tots event. Bring an unwrapped toy or a donation for Toys for Tots, and your child will have the opportunity to meet our special guests and take a photo with them, too. Afterwards, gather around the piano with us and sing Christmas carols from 6-7pm.
  • Join us for the 10th Annual Hoofbeats and Christmas Carols Parade on Saturday, December 15th. The parade begins at 2pm and will be at The Willcox at 2:30pm for caroling on our porch! Following the conclusion of the parade, circle back to The Willcox to sing Christmas carols with us in the lobby at 4:30pm with Kendall Standish and David Brown.

 

• Celebrate the season with us at our annual Christmas Eve Dinner! We will be preparing a special menu for you to enjoy and will have a kids menu available for children under 12.