I planned a surprise weekend for my husband's birthday and after searching a few places, I chose The Stone Manor. And boy, am I glad that I did. I had spoken to Loree a few times on the phone while booking, asking her to help me in selecting the most appropriate room for my stay. She suggested The Laurel Suite. I then emailed Brian, to help in some suggestions for surprising my husband a little further. Brian called me back and suggested some balloons and a cake be placed prior to our arrival. When we pulled up to the B&B, we were immediately greeted by the inn keepers, Vern and Astra. We were then given a tour of the house and brought to our room. My husband was blown away. The room was beautiful. We had some cake and was offered a very nice tray of cheese & crackers and some grapes with 2 glasses of wine. We enjoyed this on our balcony looking over the amazing the grounds. There was a wedding going on that night, which didn't interfere with our quiet retreat, nor the hospitality that we received even before becoming guests of the B&B. The Laurel Suite has a tub big enough for 2 and a very cool shower with jets in all directions. The bed is extremely comfortable...it was the best nights sleep we've had away from home. We slept in the next morning and had a very nice breakfast. We had orange juice, homemade egg souffle, delicious lemon poppy seed muffins, and yogurt, with peach slices and granola. This entire experience was something we will never forget. We can't wait till the next time! We have already referred The Stone Manor to our friends and family. Thank you Loree, Brian, Vern and Astra for truly a wonderful weekend we will always treasure!

Wow, what an amazing and beautiful place. My husband purchased Stone Manor B& B for me, for Christmas. His idea was to have a romantic night away from our daughter for the first time. Well this place did it. When we arrived to Stone Manor, both of the owners were there to greet us. We asked for a tour and got a very interesting history lesson of the house. There were many rooms to pick from. I picked the Laurel Suite. In this room there was a warm welcoming fireplace to help take off the chill from the cold winter. There was plenty of space within this room. We really liked the setting of the bedroom, which was in its own room. There was a walk out porch overlooking the well maintained land, a queen size sleigh bed. There were fresh linens, a Jacuzzi tub that you could fit a whole family in, and a shower that was one of a kind. The shower was one but had multiple shower heads so that you and your spouse could be in there together and not get cold. What a great idea. We settled in for a romantic night with a complementary tray assorted with fruit, cheese, crackers, olives, bite size sausage, and wine. We were able to get a well deserved peaceful night sleep. The next morning we went into the dining room for fresh coffee, juices, fruit, and an assortment of pastries. I would stay there again, if fact, we have asked for Stone Manor to let us know when the new B & B room is completed to let us know so that we may be one of first to enjoy it. Thank you Stone Manor for letting us stay with you and giving us such a great experience. We look forward to another visit soon.

We stayed in the Laurel room which had a nice gas fireplace, a comfortable bed, a little porch balcony, and an enormous, sumptuous bathtub for two, with jets and all. There was wine and cheese brought to us both evenings. We had a lovely time all in all, but there were a few serious downsides:

First, breakfast. At Motel 6 or Days Inn the reception area often has a pot of coffee and maybe some muffins and fruit, if I remember correctly. This level of quality far exceeds what Stone Manor serves for breakfast. We had lukewarm coffee that was light brown--basically just hot water (probably half to one-third strength of normal coffee), some stale muffins cut in quarters, and some artificial, machine-made tiny pastry cups with some egg-containing material filling the inside, obviously fresh out of the freezer and now around room temperature. Actually, we didn't really have these things for breakfast.... We took a nibble/sip of the offerings and immediately made the decision to drive into town and have some Cracker Barrel. Stone Manor's breakfast was the second worst breakfast I think that I have ever had.... Second only to some stale corn flakes mixed with warm peach yoghurt that I forced myself to choke down for energy, between fits of nausea from altitude sickness at 1am as we put on crampons to make an attempt for an Andean summit. And that wasn't really the base camp's fault.... It was days of walking to get to any food source. I checked--Stone Manor may be in the country but it's only about a 4 minute drive to the nearest market. And yet, no fruit. No juice. No cereal. No piping hot waffles with blueberries and powdered sugar. No sizzling bacon. No scrambled eggs. It didn't even qualify for a continental breakfast except maybe if by 'continental' they include certain horrific European famines of the Middle Ages. The other downsides, like no bubble bath soap for the tub and getting perpetually locked out of the building and not enough towels, are trivial in comparison. All in all the room was nice and the grounds rather pretty in a simple farmhouse way, but I beg you, for the love of God and all things holy, do NOT eat their breakfast! And if you have pets, be sure to keep them away from the food as well.

Stone Manor Inn is a lovely -- but expensive -- retreat about 45 minutes from Washington. D.C. Our room was huge, comfortable, and nicely appointed (at $275 a night, it should be). Sadly, Stone Manor's dining experience is nowhere near what it used to be. Last year, we enjoyed a sumptuous and innovative multicourse tasting dinner, well worth the $70 per person price, particularly when coupled a selection from with the chef's exceptional wine list. So it was with trepidation that we learned that the chef had departed in August, 2002, to South Carolina. Our concerns were justified. Stone Manor's food still looks good, but looks can be deceiving. Dinner began badly enough when the first two wine selections I made were "out of stock", which our server gamely tried to explain as "reorganization" of the wine cellar under the new chef. My third selection, a nice Australian Shiraz, arrived so cold that it took more than half the dinner to warm to an acceptable drinking temperature, the coldness closing off the wine and leaving it tasting thin and uninteresting. When it finally warmed to room temperature, it was very good, but no one should have to wait half the meal to enjoy a $50 bottle of wine. Our dinner was disappointing from start to finish. My first course of "two confits" consisted of duck and game hen confit, two small pieces of game hen (breast and leg) sitting on top of black eyed pea puree mixed with shreds of duck confit. The pea puree was underseasoned (a theme throughout the dinner); the duck and game hen dry and dull. Altogether, a bland disappointment that, like every course of the dinner, looked beautiful. My wife's appetizer of salmon atop a berry puree looked better than it tasted, the puree at odds with the fish. The soup course, a white bean soup with a squash stuffed ravioli, finished with truffle oil, fared little better. The soup, was hard to eat, served as it was in an oversized and oddly flat and shallow bowl. In contrast to the res
although the truffle oil lent a nice counterpoint to the salty blandness of the soup itself. The ravioli was undercooked, rendering it a bit too al dente, the whole white beans in the soup were virtually uncooked, lending an unappetizing chalky crunchiness to the dish. My entree of duck breast over black sticy rice was typical of the meal: the duck breast was nicely cooked but lacking in any discernable flavor; the black sticky rice was, oddly, not sticky at all, each grain perfectly separate, and apparently unseasoned. Accompanied by undercooked brussel sprouts and sauced (barely) with a madeira cream, the neither the sum nor the parts of this dish made much sense, rather as though the chef had selected what he or she thought would look good on the plate, with no eye to pulling the diverse ingredients together as a whole. Likewise my wife's lambshank ragout, stuffed into a few oversized ravioli and served with a veal demiglace. She would rather have had the lambshanks themselves. Dessert for me was a "tarte tatin" napolean, which, after an endless delay, arrived stone cold, chewy, and dull. My wife's warm chocolate cake was excellent, but not worth the delay it took to make it.

Last years dinner was a revalation: innovative, creative, imaginative and generous cooking in a lovely rural setting. What a difference a chef makes! This year's dining at Stone Manor Inn is a waste of time and money. This is now a restaurant seriously at risk: ambitiously visual cooking in which looks, not taste, seem to be the main objective. Carelessly cooked, underseasoned, and for the most part dull food served at hefty Washington prices make Stone Manor a dining decision best avoided until a surer hand takes over the kitchen once again.