If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD116.44), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Southern hospitality gets a boutique spin at Elwood Hotel, a sweet-as-pie stay in Lexington. Peonies bloom in hand-painted murals, soul-warming Southern comfort food spotlights produce from nearby farms, and live local bands soundtrack chilled weekend nights in. Cool, stripped-back interiors – a concrete floor here, a retro stable lamp there – keep things the right side of syrupy. And beyond the hotel, bucolic road trips and craft bourbon tastings craft beckon.
11am. Check-in is at 4pm, but both are flexible, for an extra fee and subject to availability.
Prices
Double rooms from £91.32 ($116), including tax at 16.07 per cent.
More details
Rates at Elwood Hotel are room-only, but the Fiddletree serves breakfast dishes ranging from $8—$18.
Also
ADA-standard accessible rooms are available in the Elwood Premier King, Elwood Premier Double Queen and Signature Residential Suite categories. Every ADA room is on the ground floor, and has a spacious bathroom with a roll-in shower and grab bars. All the hotel’s communal areas, including the restaurant, are wheelchair accessible, and there is designated parking for disabled guests.
At the hotel
Patio with fire pits, gym, free-to-use laundry facilities and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV, steamer, mini fridge, coffee-making kit on request, free bottled water and Malin + Goetz bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Dyed concrete floors earn the ground-floor rooms maximum design cred. For a full home-from-home, the King Corner Suite has a kitchenette and a cozy separate living space.
Packing tips
Even staunch whiskey skeptics should save suitcase space for a bottle of Kentucky’s finest – the Fiddletree bar’s bourbon-based creations may make a convert of you yet.
Also
There’s a fitness room with cardio equipment, free weights and yoga mats.
Pet‐friendly
Dogs and cats are welcome and well catered to, for an extra $75 a stay (for up to two pets a room). They’ll be greeted with food and water bowls, beds and treats. See more pet-friendly hotels in Kentucky.
Children
All ages are welcome. Cribs can be added to rooms on request, and kids’ options are available at the restaurant.
Our eye’s been caught by the candy pink banquette, but weekend nights are best passed with bourbon and bluesy tunes around the patio fire pits.
Dress Code
Florals and 501s.
Hotel restaurant
There’s a cockles-warming community feel at Fiddletree, the hotel’s laidback local-favorite restaurant. The brunch and dinner menus center around Southern comfort food, so expect down-home classics including shrimp and grits, honey-buttered cornbread and fried chicken doused in Louisiana hot sauce alongside American staples like smash burgers and creamy Tuscan-style pasta. On Fridays and Saturdays, dinner is soundtracked by live music from homegrown acts.
Hotel bar
The Fiddletree bar has cemented itself as a favorite Lexington hangout, and little wonder. There’s fresh ground coffee in the AM, and come sundown, you can look forward to local craft ale on draught and a curated cocktail menu, including some making masterful use of fine Kentucky bourbons.
Last orders
Fiddletree Kitchen and Bar is open 7am to 10am, Tuesday to Saturday. It’s closed all day on Mondays and for dinner on Sundays. Happy hour runs from 2.30pm to 5pm.
Room service
When the restaurant is open, you can order dishes straight to your room.
Elwood Hotel is a few minutes from downtown Lexington, a trot from Kentucky’s horse country and the bourbon trail.
Planes
Louisville International Airport and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport are each under an hour and a half away. Flights from across the US touch down at both, and you can also fly direct from London Heathrow to Cincinnati. A handful of domestic flights also land at Lexington Blue Grass Airport, a 10-minute drive away.
Automobiles
Uber can take you downtown, but to tour horse country or the bourbon distilleries, you’ll want your own wheels. There’s free private parking at the hotel.
Worth getting out of bed for
You’re well placed for a windows-rolled-down road trip through the rolling pastures of horse country, passing pretty barns and derby winners-in-waiting along the way. Or rope in a designated driver and chart a tipsy course along the Bourbon Trail, Kentucky’s network of craft whiskey distilleries. If beer’s more your bag, try the Brewgrass Trail instead.
Local restaurants
Speakeasy-style Carson’s is a Lexington Main Street staple – choose from double-stacked burgers and sandwiches, fresh seafood, pasta and Asian-inspired plates. Carnivores will be in clover at Tony’s, a local-favorite steakhouse in downtown Lexington.
Local bars
If you’re dipping a toe in the state’s bourbon scene, Woodford Reserve Distillery should be top of your hit list. They pioneered fine bourbon production back in 1812, and centuries on still produce award-winning bottles. You’ll need to book guided tastings in advance; otherwise, call in at the cocktail bar to sample inventive whiskey-based creations. Town Branch is both a distillery and brewery where indecisive drinkers can sample bourbon barrel-aged ale alongside their high malt-mash whiskeys. In downtown Lexington, Arcadium has local craft beers on draught to fuel competitive evenings vying for a spot on the retro arcade games’ scoreboards.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this heartwarming hotel in Kentucky and unpacked their craft bourbon and bluegrass records, a full account of their Southern city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Elwood Hotel in Lexington…
Making yourself at home isn’t so much an invitation at Elwood Hotel, more a slow-morph transformation that starts as soon as you set your bags down. From the jump, friendly staff and cheery floral murals set to remedying any residual stresses from the road. As you settle into your room, hand-chosen photographs and equestrian paraphernalia fill you in on the necessary Kentucky lore – bluegrass and the Derby double-helix around each other in the state’s DNA. Lingering over comfort food in the restaurant conjures home-cooking levels of contentment, and your conversion is almost complete. And as you order a second bourbon on the rocks, you clock a distinct twang creeping in. The Fiddletree bar welcomes as many townfolk as it does hotel guests, so that by the time the night’s local act have strummed their opening bars, you’d swear you were Lexington born and bred.
