North Carolina's Pinehurst Resort

The Pinehurst Resort in the North Carolina Sandhills keeps enhancing its hospitality offerings. Along with the iconic, 230-room Carolina Hotel and the more intimate, boutique-like 82-room Holly Inn comes a completely refurbished Manor. The four-story, 43-room inn-style Manor is the latest upgrade to a property that is one of the Historic Hotels of America.

The original 1923 Manor building, with its stucco porte cochere and clapboard exterior, has been rebuilt from head to toe, with expanded, modernized room space along with a welcoming veranda and firepit back patio. The final touch, unveiled last December, is the upscale North & South Bar just off the front lobby. The signature cocktails all involve bourbon—this is the South, after all. The early frontrunner for favorite is a Manhattan served with Woodford Reserve and an orange peel.

Pinehurst Resort, a four-diamond AAA property, is on quite a roll, having totally restored its famed Donald Ross-designed No. 2 golf course, upgraded its No. 4 course with a retro Gil Hanse redesign, and added the nine-hole par-3 Cradle course. It has also altered its town’s nightlife with the popular pub and sports-bar-style Pinehurst Brewing Co., which is within easy walking distance of the Manor.