The Loutrel – Charleston's hotel named after a gardener

Charleston's French Quarter is small enough to cross on foot between two church bells, and it is here, at 61 State Street, that The Loutrel opened on 1 November 2021 as the first newly built hotel on the peninsula since the pandemic began. The MICHELIN Guide gives it Two MICHELIN Keys, describing a neighbourhood that "might not be the nation's most famous, but it may very well be its finest" and a hotel whose rooms "combine antique good looks with subtly high-tech modern comforts." What makes the 50-room property more than another tasteful infill is its name: Loutrel was a well-known twentieth-century landscape architect who designed roughly a hundred private and public gardens across the Historic District after setting up an office in the city in 1929, from grand Battery addresses to the Garden Club of Charleston's Gateway Walk. The hotel never puts his portrait on a wall, but the whole building behaves like one of his gardens — layered, green and quietly structured.

01The house

The Loutrel was developed by IBG Partners and Boston-based Spaulding Slye Investments, with Charleston's Board of Architectural Review granting permission to demolish the one-story restaurant building that previously stood on the site before construction began in 2019. It is managed by Mount Pleasant-based Charlestowne Hotels as the fourteenth Charleston-area property in that company's portfolio. The result is a genuinely new building that nonetheless reads as part of the street: the lobby was built to feel like a Charleston front porch moved indoors, swing included.

Locally, the connection to Loutrel Briggs is well understood even if the hotel itself stays quiet about it: a spokesperson told the Post and Courier that the name was simply "inspired by the city's many public and private gardens," without direct reference to Briggs on the website. The general manager has described the overall feel as more modern than nostalgic, despite the nods to the past scattered through the public rooms — not least a wall-sized lobby painting by Charleston artist Linda Fantuzzo, commissioned and painted from Briggs's own original landscape drawings.

02Rooms and suites

The 50 rooms and suites run from California king rooms to corner kings looking toward the Ravenel Bridge or Charleston Harbor, five suites and a premier suite, with many rooms opening onto Juliet balconies and a handful of double-queen rooms built for families or groups. The colour story stays close to the garden brief — a soothing palette of blues, greys and greens drawn from the city and coast rather than loud pattern.

Insider tip

Check-in 3pm, check-out 11am; valet parking USD 45/day; no pets, service animals welcome.

Bathrooms are fitted with Dyson hairdryers, and every room carries Lavazza coffee, a stocked minibar of local snacks and beverages, and smart flat-screen televisions, with locally crafted Deep Steep bath amenities continuing the botanical thread from lobby to headboard.

03Where to eat and drink

The Loutrel has no stand-alone restaurant; its food and drink programme runs through the Veranda Lounge, tucked into the side of the lobby behind an expansive bronze-and-wood bar designed to conjure an old ship, with live citrus trees and a repurposed Southern porch swing completing the room. Arriving guests are greeted with the house's own "Nice to Meet You" Swizzle, a cocktail that draws its inspiration from the Franco-Italian border, before a daily "Finest Hour" brings canapés and punch-bowl cocktails to the same room.

In 2026 the Lounge's food side was overhauled by newly appointed Director of Food & Beverage Jason Vaughn, who brought more than thirty years of hospitality experience to a reimagined, Southern-driven all-day menu. Standouts on the refreshed menu include a Charleston Red Rice Cassoulet with fried green tomatoes and Lady Pea sweet corn relish, Smoked Oysters finished with country ham butter and parmesan pepper stuffing, and a Crispy Shrimp Cake Roll layered with peach cocktail sauce, heirloom tomatoes and house-made hot pickles on a toasted brioche roll.

The botanical theme is not just decorative: the herbs and garnishes used in the Lounge's craft cocktails are grown upstairs, in the rooftop garden tended by the hotel's own director of gardening, Rafael Madruga — about as literal a link to Loutrel Briggs's legacy as a bar menu can manage.

04Rooftop, Clubroom and private dining

On the rooftop terrace, guests take in views of the Ravenel Bridge and the historic steeples that give Charleston its nickname of the Holy City, with cocktails and small plates from the Veranda Lounge menu carried up on request. A separate, quieter register is kept on the mezzanine level, where a private Clubroom reserved exclusively for hotel guests offers complimentary snacks and drinks through the day, including cookies from Grey Ghost Bakery and nectars from local producer Les Hespérides.

For something more formal, an intimate private dining room off the Veranda Lounge can be booked for small receptions or events, alongside the Clubroom and rooftop as rentable spaces for private gatherings. A 24-hour fitness studio, fitted with a Peloton bike and Life Fitness equipment, rounds out the amenities for guests who would rather sweat than sip.

05The neighbourhood

The Loutrel sits in Charleston's trendy French Quarter, within easy reach of the cobblestone streets and Colonial mansions that define the Historic District, and close enough to King Street's shopping corridor to walk there in minutes. Historic Charleston City Market is around the corner, and the cultural geography of the peninsula — Rainbow Row, the Gibbes Museum of Art, the Battery promenade toward Fort Sumter — is within a short stroll in every direction, exactly the kind of compact, walkable grid that first drew Loutrel Briggs's wealthy garden clients south for the winter a century ago.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.