Hotel Bennett Charleston ★★★★★

The Top of King Street, Facing Ten Acres of Park

Charleston keeps most of its grandeur behind garden walls, in single houses turned sideways to the street. Hotel Bennett does the opposite. It stands square at 404 King Street, on the corner of Marion Square, and looks straight out over the ten acres of park where the farmers market and the festivals happen. The building is unapologetically European in its materials, marble and limestone and copper and tile, with Lowcountry detail worked through it, and the 173 rooms and suites sit above a ground floor that behaves like a small quarter of the city rather than a lobby.

Why It Works

It earns its place on three counts. The position is the best in the upper peninsula, on the shopping street and on the park at the same time, which is a rare pairing. The house has four distinct places to eat and drink rather than one restaurant and a bar, so a long weekend never repeats itself. And the detail that decided it for us is editorial: the rooms carry built in shelves stocked with Lowcountry authors, a nod to the public library that stood on this ground, which is the kind of specificity a luxury hotel usually leaves to its brochure.

Why This Location

King Street is the walking spine of Charleston, and the hotel sits at its upper end, where the design shops and galleries are. Marion Square is across the road, the Charleston City Market and the Historic District are a straight walk south, and the College of Charleston campus is a block or two east. Everything that makes people come here, the single houses of the Battery, the restaurants of Upper King, the harbour, joins up on foot from this corner. A car is for the day you leave for the beaches or the plantations.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxe

• Vibe: European grandeur, Charleston manners, polished, sociable

• Rooms: 173 rooms and suites, from Deluxe Kings to one and two bedroom suites and an Owner’s Suite, some with private terraces

• Best For: a first stay in Charleston, walkers, couples, anyone who likes a hotel with several rooms to sit in

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the bookshelves in the guest rooms, filled with local authors in memory of the library that stood on the site

• Dining: Gabrielle for dinner over Marion Square, Camellias for champagne and afternoon tea, La Pâtisserie as a Parisian café on King Street, and Fiat Lux on the roof

• Amenities: The Spa at Hotel Bennett, heated rooftop pool with cabanas and poolside dining, fitness centre, the King’s Club lounge with concierge, valet parking

• Attractions: Marion Square, King Street shopping, the Charleston City Market, the Historic District and the Battery, the College of Charleston

Rooms That Remember a Library

The rooms are built around tall windows and a calm palette, with deep soaking tubs and drapes that open at the touch of a button, and the best of them face the square. Suites run from junior to two bedrooms, and some open onto private terraces. The shelves are the thing people photograph: built in, stocked with Charleston and Lowcountry writers, and genuinely readable. Check in is from four in the afternoon, check out at noon, and children are welcome throughout.

Four Rooms to Eat and Drink In

Gabrielle is the dining room, looking over the park, and it is where the hotel makes its case for a proper evening. Camellias is the counterpoint, a pink champagne lounge that also pours afternoon tea. La Pâtisserie opens onto King Street as a Parisian café and does the morning work. Fiat Lux, on the roof, takes the sunset. Room service and special diet menus fill the gaps, but the point of this house is that you can move between four different moods without leaving it.

The Roof, the Spa and the Charleston Summer

The rooftop pool is the largest in the city, heated and open all year, with cabanas, poolside dining and a view across the steeples to the harbour. It is the answer to a Charleston August, and it is just as good in January when the terrace empties. The Spa handles massages, facials and body treatments on a short menu done properly, the fitness centre runs alongside, and the King’s Club gives members and suite guests a quiet lounge and a concierge who knows the restaurant bookings worth having.