A five-room 1898 Queen Anne on the residential Historic Point of Beaufort, run as a family home and inn for more than a century, with themed rooms and the quietest morning in the district.
"Five themed rooms in an 1898 Queen Anne on a residential lane two blocks from the seawall. The Old Point is the inn for a quieter Beaufort weekend, the one where the city's only soundtrack is bicycles and church bells."
The Old Point Inn was built in 1898 as a private Queen Anne residence on Beaufort's Historic Point, the leafy residential peninsula that juts south from the downtown grid toward the Beaufort River. The house has carried the same family for parts of four generations, and the inn's tagline (a hundred years sheltering family and guests) is closer to a literal accounting than a marketing line. The architecture is intact, double verandas, a corner turret, original heart pine floors, period light fixtures, and the inn has resisted the temptation to over-restore. The result reads more like staying in a private historic home than checking into a hotel, which is the property's entire pitch.
There are five guest rooms in total, each named for its theme and individually decorated. The Wedding Gift Room is the largest, a king with a clawfoot tub and a private corner of the upper veranda, named for the antique walnut bed gifted to the family in 1898. The Safari Room and Turkish Room read more eccentric, with collected pieces from the family's twentieth-century travels; the Charleston Room is the most period-correct option, all pale blue panelling and a brass bed. Every room holds its own private bath, none have televisions, and the WiFi is fast throughout. Rates remain at a point that is honestly remarkable for a working historic property on the Point.
Breakfast is plated and served family-style in the original dining room, a daily-changing single hot dish (shrimp and grits, French toast, frittata) with biscuits, fresh fruit, and a properly-made pot of coffee. There is no formal social hour, no afternoon tea, no dinner service; the inn does not pretend to be a larger property than it is, and the operating culture is deliberately low-key. The front porch is the most used room in the house, with rocking chairs facing New Street and a ceiling fan that runs from May through September.
Service is run by the family directly, which means arrivals are met by name, breakfast preferences are remembered the second morning, and the property's small library is open to guests for the duration of the stay. Complimentary bicycles are available, and the seawall walk to downtown is twelve minutes through one of the most photographed residential streets in the Lowcountry. The Old Point Inn is the booking for guests who want to feel like temporary residents of Beaufort rather than visitors, and the rates make a three-night stay realistic for a much broader audience than the rest of the city's inn stock.
For a solo Lowcountry weekend with no urgency on either price or noise, the Old Point Inn is the rare booking that holds quality at three-star rates. Take the Charleston Room, accept the family-style breakfast, walk to downtown along the seawall, and read on the front porch in the afternoon. The whole format costs roughly half of the Bay Street competition.
For a low-key anniversary that prefers the residential side of Beaufort to the waterfront, the Wedding Gift Room is the obvious booking. The clawfoot tub, the corner of the upper veranda, and the easy walk to the downtown tables make this the cleanest inn for a couple that has already done the bigger Southern resorts and wants something quieter.
212 New Street
Beaufort, SC 29902
United States
Residential Historic Point district, three blocks from the seawall, twelve minutes on foot to downtown Bay Street
5 themed guest rooms
Standard rooms from $95/night
Charleston Room and Turkish Room from $130/night
Safari Room from $150/night
Wedding Gift Room to $189/night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
Built 1898; operated by the same family for parts of four generations
Family-style hot breakfast included
Period-correct heart pine floors
Double verandas with rocking chairs
Complimentary bicycles
Private bath in every room
Complimentary WiFi throughout
From $95/night. The Wedding Gift Room and the Safari Room book three months ahead for spring and autumn weekends; the small five-room scale means most weekends sell out completely.
Compare Room Rates →An 1897 Victorian main house plus cottages and flats across most of a downtown block.
A nineteen-room antebellum plantation house on Craven Street under Spanish moss.
Ten adults-only rooms in a 1790 Federal-style waterfront house on Bay Street.
New openings, special offers, and the week’s best value suites. One email a week, no noise.