While searching for the website of The Homestead Hotel here in Utah I came across a much older and elegant establishment. The Homestead in Virginia dates back to 1766. One look at this grand old building takes you back to colonial times of yesteryear.

The web site greets you with some lower quality images of the surrounding that I’m sure don’t do them justice.
Then right below that is their booking engine, kudos for getting this right. It’s amazing how many reservation system web sites make you click multiple times to try to find out if there is availability.

While the code and the look and feel of the site is a bit out-dated, the site is fairly easy to use and find everything you need.
One suggestion would to make the photo gallery more apparent and use the actual images to draw people in. Like many people I choose a place to stay based on the charm and intrigue of a site. I don’t usually pick a destination and then find lodging, it’s quite the other way around. I find a place of lodging and then see what there is to offer around there. That’s one reason why frequent stay cards with national chain hotels don’t really work for me. While I love Marriott hotels when I’m away on business, I don’t tend to find all the different Marriott’s and go there on vacation.

A good example is when I was thinking of somewhere to take my wife for our tenth wedding anniversary. I thought of something meaningful (we watched Somewhere in Time on our honeymoon) and then researched to find out where that hotel was. Again when I saw a fairy tale like castle on a television program I researched and found the Fairmont at Banff Springs.

The Homestead runs along this same vain, while searching for another site the images of this grand old building and it’s surroundings drew me in. One look at the history of this place makes you feel like your sleeping where presidents and royalty have slept. It’s apropos that it should do this as that is just the case. It wouldn’t seem a bit out of place to walk down the halls and see powdered wigs atop distinguished gentlemen and ladies in large evening gowns.

The Homestead brings back a taste of sophistication that is so absent in todays society. You would feel out of place to show up to dinner in a t-shirt and flip-flops. It’s much more exhilarating to show up to dinner in formal dress to enhance the illusion of a more proper and gentile day and time.

At the same time you can feel at home as you wander the grounds which are nestled in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia. Whether you take a hike amongst the trees and waterfalls or play a few rounds of golf, you can rest and relax just the way you want.

This picturesque palace is sure to capture your imagination and leave you wanting to come back again and again.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 11:53 am and is filed under Accessibility, CSS, Design, HTML, Hotels, Reviews, SEO, Standards, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.