Planters Inn

Planters Inn is the traditional-luxury inn Charleston visitors have in mind when they picture a four-poster bed, a doorman, and a courtyard behind a gate. It has 64 rooms and suites in an 1844 building, it has been a member of Relais & Châteaux since 1999, and its front door opens onto the busiest corner of the tourist district.

That last part is both the reason to book it and the reason some people regret it. Everything below is the case for and against, including the renovation currently underway and the noise nobody's brochure mentions.

A cotton warehouse that took 150 years to become a hotel

The building went up in 1844 as a large cotton warehouse on the corner of North Market and Meeting, next door to the Greek Revival Market Hall that Edward Brickwell White had designed three years earlier. By 1901 it was a dry goods emporium, stocking harmonicas, sailor caps, whalebone petticoats, and paper doilies. The inn's own copy shortens all of this to "built in 1844 as a luxury goods emporium," which skips about sixty years.

The hotel is far younger than the brick. The Holliday Companies bought 112 North Market Street in 1994 and restored it, then kept going through the late 1990s: a $4 million project added 21 guest rooms, the ballroom, and the courtyard, and a separate $7 million, 30-room expansion replaced 19th-century warehouses that Hurricane Hugo had wrecked in 1989. That second project won a Carolopolis Award from the Preservation Society of Charleston. Peninsula Grill opened in 1997, and Esquire named it one of America's best new restaurants. Relais & Châteaux invited the inn to join in 1999.

One more piece of recent history matters if you are booking now. Crystal Creek Hospitality, based in Jackson, Wyoming, bought the inn in March 2025 for $75 million, and the renovation described below is that company's first big move.

What Relais & Châteaux actually means

This designation is worth understanding, because it is unusual in Charleston. Relais & Châteaux is a French association founded in 1954, now roughly 580 independently owned hotels and restaurants across five continents, most of them family-run. You cannot apply your way in with a checklist; membership is by invitation, it is judged on cooking and service as much as on the rooms, and it can be withdrawn. Planters Inn is the only member in South Carolina, and Peninsula Grill is included in the membership alongside the hotel.

In practice that means the service model is old-fashioned rather than app-driven. Uniformed doormen at arrival, a concierge who books your table, nightly turndown, room service, apples and orange-mango tea in the parlor, and coffee set out morning and evening. Each copper carriage lantern in the courtyard is lit by hand at dusk. If you like being fussed over, you will like it here. If you would rather check in on your phone and be left alone, you are paying for something you do not want.

The rooms, the parlor, and the courtyard

Guest rooms run to ten-foot ceilings, and the property has dozens of working fireplaces. Every room has a handcrafted four-poster bed from Baker's Historic Charleston Collection, with Italian Mascioni linens and Molton Brown products in the bathroom. Audubon prints and Elizabeth O'Neill Verner etchings hang on the walls. A plush teddy bear sits on every bed as the inn's hospitality mascot, which sounds twee written down and is meant sincerely.

The parlor is small, panelled, and hung with chandeliers, the work of Charleston designer Amelia Handegan. The courtyard behind it was laid out by Sheila Wertimer, the landscape architect responsible for a good many of the best private gardens in the city, and it is the reason to care about room categories. Piazza King, Premier Charleston King, Premier Grand King, and the Garden Courtyard Suites all open onto shared piazzas over that courtyard. The City Market Suite, by contrast, looks out at the market itself. Both are lovely. Only one of them is quiet.

The 2026 renovation, in plain terms

Planters Inn announced a property-wide renovation in July 2026 covering all guest rooms and suites, the lobby, parlor, and courtyard, and Peninsula Grill with its Champagne Bar. It is being done in phases so the hotel can stay open, and completion is scheduled for January 2027.

What that means for a stay booked now: the lobby has been temporarily relocated to the Charleston Room, staff meet arrivals there, breakfast has moved to Benne's, and the hotel tells guests plainly that they may notice construction activity. Peninsula Grill stayed open for dinner through August 31, 2026, and its own renovation began in late August. If dinner at the Grill is a reason you are booking, call and confirm before you pay. Check the hotel's site for the current phase; this is the one fact on the page most likely to be out of date by the time you read it.

Peninsula Grill, and the cake

Peninsula Grill is reached through a brick alley and a wrought-iron gate off the courtyard, which is a better entrance than most restaurants get. It serves dinner only, with the dining room open 5:30 to 9 p.m. and the Champagne Bar until 10 p.m. The wine list runs past 300 selections and has held a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence; John Ondo took over as executive chef in 2026.

The Ultimate Coconut Cake is not hotel-marketing hyperbole. It is a trademarked 12-layer cake with cream cheese icing and toasted coconut, and it has been written up by more or less everyone; Bloomberg called it the best mail-order cake in America in 2019. You have three ways at it. Order dessert at the Grill, buy a slice for $17 at Benne's, the bakery and cafe at the same address, or have a whole one shipped overnight anywhere in the continental US for $270. The shipped cake is 13 pounds and feeds 18 to 20. It belongs on the same Charleston list as she-crab soup and shrimp and grits, and a food tour will handle the rest of that list in an afternoon.

The location: the best in Charleston, and the loudest

Nothing beats this address for walking. The Charleston City Market starts at the front door and runs four blocks east to East Bay Street. King Street shopping is one block west. Waterfront Park is about an eight-minute walk, Rainbow Row about ten, the Battery about twenty. Guests genuinely do not need a car, which is worth roughly $45 a night in avoided valet.

Now the part hotels do not put in the brochure. That same corner is where the horses, the bar crowds, and the tour groups all are. The carriage barns are a block or two away on Guignard and Anson Streets, so hooves on pavement start early and run all day. The Night Market fills the open sheds Friday and Saturday evenings until 10:30 p.m. from March through December. Market Street bars go later than that, and weekend crowds on this block do not thin out early. The interior is calm, but glass is glass, and street-facing rooms hear the street.

The fix is simple and free: ask for a courtyard-facing category when you book, and say why. The piazza rooms over the courtyard are a different hotel from the ones over North Market Street.

Who should book it, and who should not

Book it if you want the market at your door and traditional service around you. For a couple's weekend it is close to ideal, and it sits at the top of our Charleston for couples shortlist alongside the quieter options: courtyard, four-poster, turndown, and a serious restaurant downstairs that you reach by walking through a garden. Leave the car with the valet on Friday and you will not think about it again.

Do not book it if you sleep lightly and will not accept a specific room category, or if you want a pool, a gym, and a spa for your money. Families are welcome, with connecting rooms, cots, high chairs, and babysitting available, but a family of four paying spring rates here is buying service a child will not notice. Pets are not allowed at all. And if you want the renovation finished rather than in progress, wait until 2027 and book then.

How it compares

The natural comparison is Wentworth Mansion, the other small historic luxury hotel at this price. Wentworth has the better building and a much quieter night, at the cost of a 15-minute walk to the middle of things. Planters is the opposite trade: worse sleep odds, unbeatable position. Pick based on which one you will regret more.

Against the bigger downtown hotels, Planters wins on character and dining and loses on facilities; if you want a rooftop pool and a full spa, book a modern property. For the whole field, including the four-star hotels where you will pay a good deal less, see our where to stay in Charleston guide. Rates here move a long way by season, and 64 rooms sell out early for spring and October, so flexible dates are worth real money.