History on Main Street
Southwest Virginia’s General Francis Marion Hotel, following a major restoration, remembers the romance of the Jazz Age.
Standing tall in a downtown surrounded by great outdoor opportunities, the General Francis Marion Hotel of Marion, Va., offers charm and modern-day amenities in architecture that flashes back to the Roaring 1920s.
This 36-room hotel dates to 1927, an era when its restaurant, then called Capers, was visited by the likes of short-story author Sherwood Anderson, who called Marion home until his death in 1941.
Today, after a $5 million restoration by owners Joe and Susie Ellis, Capers – now called the Black Rooster Restaurant – is again serving tasty delights on the ground-floor level of this brick hotel, looming handsomely over Marion’s Main Street, a corridor that has been lovingly enhanced in recent years thanks to a myriad of business owners and the success of the Virginia Main Street program.
Here, at the Francis Marion Hotel, you can relax in guestrooms featuring period furnishings, 316-thread count Egyptian cotton linens and imported Anichini Matelasse bed covers. And talk about playing hard and resting easy: The cozy inn stands just five miles from Hungry Mother State Park and less than an hour from Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and Grayson Highlands State Park. Access to popular rail-trails are also less than an hour away, going north or south on I-81.
Just off the mezzanine, the intimate Card Room sports China red walls and gray, black and red floor tiles-some carrying the motif of playing cards. The hotel’s Black Rooster Gallery and Lounge, in turn, offers a cozy gathering place plus a selection of artwork. Nearby, on Main Street, you’ll find the Lincoln Theatre, often the scene of concerts and dramatic productions. The Lincoln Theatre, dating to 1929, shines as another beacon of Marion’s rebirth.
The hotel’s name comes from the Revolutionary War’s “Swamp Fox” of South Carolina, for whom the town of Marion is also named. For several decades, however, the inn was called Hotel Lincoln for Charles C.
Lincoln, a prominent business owner and co-owner of the hotel when it was built along U.S. 11. Lincoln’s name, by the way, is the one remembered at the Lincoln Theatre. The General Francis Marion Hotel joined the list of Virginia Historic landmarks in 1995 and is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
877-783-4802, 276-783-4800, gfmhotel.com. $75-$199. Non-smoking.
Children are welcome, no pets. Open year-round; reservations highly recommended. Handicap accessible.
