Montage Palmetto Bluff
Bluffton, South Carolina
Montage Palmetto Bluff just unveiled its $100 million expansion and renovation that added 150 guest rooms for a total of 200 and expanded its meeting and event space to now offer more than 16,000 square feet.
The Inn, the resort’s newest building, opened in August and sits on an expanded lagoon where guests can take rides in electric boats with candy-striped canopies. The 152-room hotel features a restaurant, a bar, a spa, a lobby lounge, two pools and lagoon-side dining. Event space includes the 6,700-square-foot Wilson Ballroom and two second-floor rooms that can be combined for 1,000 square feet.
In the River House, the 1,800-square-foot Oak Ballroom opens onto a wraparound veranda, and the River Room offers another 1,400 square feet of meeting space. “Large doors and windows and that surrounding veranda all look out over the May River; a lot of natural light comes into those spaces,” said Christine Wrobel, public relations and marketing manager. Groups of 50 can also gather in the wine cellar.
Groups have a host of outdoor options at the resort, which sits on 20,000 acres in the low country. Staff will set up the resort’s food truck; its custom s’mores bicycle; and the Little Brown Wagon, a vintage teardrop camper turned bourbon bar.
www.montagehotels.com/palmettobluff
Inn on Biltmore Estate
Asheville, North Carolina
The Biltmore Estate covers nearly 7,000 acres near Asheville, North Carolina, and the Biltmore House is George Washington Vanderbilt II’s 250-room French Chateau-style mansion centerpiece completed in 1895. Although guests can’t stay in the mansion, which remains the largest privately owned home in the nation to this day, they can come close. The Inn on Biltmore Estate opened in 2001 in response to years of visitors’ asking, “Can we stay in Biltmore House?”
The sprawling estate offers many venues. The Inn itself has several meeting rooms, the largest of which is the divisible 1,800-square-foot Vanderbilt Room, and guests can dine on estate-raised beef and lamb in the dining room.
After touring the Biltmore House, groups can have a rooftop reception at the mansion or in one of the gardens. Antler Hill Village was and still is the bustling heart of the estate. The Barn at Antler Hill Village, which dates to 1900, is one of the estate’s most historic facilities and offers more than 12,000 square feet for indoor events, as well as two courtyards. Guests can also stay at the Village Hotel, just steps from the winery. Lioncrest was built in the 1930s as a barn and was transformed in 2006 into an event space with a ballroom and a veranda.
Grandover
Greensboro, North Carolina
On the southwestern outskirts of Greensboro, North Carolina, the Grandover resort is as green as it gets. Its 1,500 acres span forested hills and rolling golf courses.
With 45,000 square feet of function space, meeting planners have no shortage of venues. The Grandville Ballroom is the largest, with 13,000 square feet that can be divided into four sections. Groups can reserve the 4,300-square-foot Carlisle Ballroom or the Grandview Ballroom, with 4,386 square feet and doors that open onto a private stone terrace that overlooks the grassy, green event lawn, which is available for barbecues or receptions. At the golf clubhouse, the Griffin Room has timber beams, a stone fireplace and windows that look out on the putting green.
Guests can play golf on two 18-hole courses, swim in the indoor-outdoor pool or get a treatment at the spa. Attendees can face off in a game of tennis on four clay courts or go head-to-head during a game of croquet or bocce ball.
