Inn History
Coffee or tea in the Ordinary. Lunch on the patio at Bistro 1834. Dinner in the famed Old Mill Room. A wonderfully historic Blue Ridge Mountain hotel - The Boar's Head Inn - The Boar's Head Inn.
From where do these distinguished names originate? If these walls could talk…
The Ordinary
In the 1730s, the inn property was the site of Terrell's Ordinary, a modest inn where westward travelers stayed the night. By the 1960s, the Ordinary was but a memory. In its place was the quintessential Virginia Inn.
The Old Mill
The heart of Boar's Head Inn was built from the timbers of an abandoned gristmill along the banks of the Hardware River, which dated back to 1834. The relocation of the mill was an opportunity to preserve and transform a treasured Virginia artifact. It had survived burning despite the orders of Generals Grant and Custer during their march through Charlottesville in the Civil War. Indeed, it had continued to operate some 60 years after the war's end.
Piece by Piece, The Construction
The old mill was carefully dismantled and reconstructed piece by piece at the present site of the Inn. The original fieldstones, heart pine beams and planks, and massive grist stones are now prominently featured throughout the Inn. Today, the heart of the Boar's Head Inn is the Old Mill Room, whose time-worn timbers recall the original mill. Outside, millstones are visible reminders of the building's proud past.
The University of Virginia Foundation, The Restoration
Boar's Head Inn was purchased in 1988 by the University of Virginia Foundation. Since that time, the University of Virginia Foundation has invested almost $20 million to renovate and continually upgrade the Inn. For twenty years, Boar's Head has received the prestigious AAA Four Diamond Award.
The Boar's Head Tradition
Since Shakespeare's day, London's Boar's Head Inn was synonymous with good food and warm hospitality, a tradition maintained today in the foothills of this Blue Ridge Mountain hotel, here at Boar's Head Inn Charlottesville Virginia.