In order to avoid a nearly eight-hour drive to Greensboro, North Carolina, from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, we decided to stay overnight in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. On the Web site of Guest Houses at [----], I discovered Alderman House, a gracious Colonial Revival house built in the late 1920s.

We booked a room for the night (unlike many, Alderman House does not require a minimum two-night stay) at $125, plus a fee of $5.00 for the reservation company.

If you are looking for a luxurious atmosphere with Jacuzzis, refrigerators, and large screen television, Alderman House is not for you. If you want to feel like a guest in a real home (which it is), you’ll like this place. The owner and her daughter live in the house, and their beautiful collections of art and objects, along with personal photographs, reveal a gracious way of living during the years they have resided there. A visit here also reveals how people with stature in the community lived in the early... more