[piano intro] - Next on "North Carolina Weekend," join us from the Julian Price House in Greensboro, as we take a tour of overnight favorites around the state.

We'll explore The Burke Manor Inn, retreat to the serenity of the Pisgah Inn, and visit the Inn on Turner in Beaufort.

Coming up next.

- [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by VisitNC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains, across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier-island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[lively music] [lively music continues] [lively music continues] [lively music ends] - Welcome to "North Carolina Weekend" everyone, I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

And this week we are taking a tour of overnight stays all around our state.

Right now, we're at the Julian Price House in Greensboro, a historic English Tudor style home turned luxury overnight experience.

The thoughtful renovation will take you back to the 1920s when it was originally built by businessman and philanthropist, Julian Price.

We'll explore the Julian Price House more throughout the show, but first, let's head to Gibsonville, where Producer Stephanie Bourland discovered old-world charm and French cuisine at The Burke Manor Inn.

[jazzy music] - [Stephanie] Finishing up their breakfast before heading back to Connecticut, Gilda and David Roncari are Burke Manor Inn regulars.

They've been making two-week sojourns here for the past five years and they encourage others to try it out.

- You're really missing out on a very homey place that's also elegant, you know, so it's pretty magical - [Stephanie] Beyond the beautiful rooms and the superb service is an extraordinary menu.

- Oh, I feel welcomed, I feel taken care of.

I feel like there's gonna be a surprise put down in front of us.

- [Stephanie] Inside the inn is a 4 Diamond AAA rated dining experience, Saint Jacques French restaurant.

- We'll be serving our Vol-Au-Vent Catalan.

It's gonna be some sausage and beef tip inside of our puff pastry, which we'll be sauteing in roasted red peppers, onions, and tomatoes.

We'll be serving that with a sauce au poivre and a small side salad.

- [Stephanie] Even a simple salad paired with an appetizer is delicious.

Just ask Hal Gary.

- Been coming here for about seven years.

The first time we came here, I think it was just exquisite.

I loved the salad, first of all, it was just a regular salad and I said, "Man, that was wonderful."

I just loved it, everything was perfect about it, so.

And it was just how fresh it was and everything else.

So I was sold right after that.

- [Stephanie] Chef Lil Lacassagne is passionate about the food he prepared.

- People are going to trust us, not only for us to take good care of them, to serve them quality food, to a great surrounding, but whatever we cook in the kitchen, people are going to ingest.

So there's a lot of trust with health, a lot of trust with...

So we're trying to really use the highest quality of ingredients.

- [Stephanie] Lil creates in the kitchen while his wife, Lori, makes sure guests feel right at home.

- We're not the hoity-toity stuffiness at all.

That's not what we want.

We just wanna create an ambiance where people can relax, enjoy themselves, have an experience, being well taken care of.

- [Stephanie] That commitment to service and savoir-faire makes Saint Jacques at The Burke Manor Inn a frequent stop for this Raleigh couple.

- I think it's like a casual, elegant type place to come to, and it reminds me of being in France.

[people chattering] - [Stephanie] The sound and the feel of France bring in folks from all across the state.

- We have people that will come from Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Charlotte, and kind of meet in the middle because we're just three miles off of I-40/85.

And so we're an hour drive from Raleigh, 45 minutes from Winston, an hour and 40 minutes from Charlotte.

- Which takes them to the heart of Gibsonville and this historic manor.

The home was built by Caesar Cone back in 1906, and it was purchased by Lil and Lori in 2011.

There are two cottages out back and seven rooms within the inn.

One of the most popular rooms is 203 with a jetted tub and a balcony.

Simple luxuries continue throughout the inn's three and a half acres, including a pool and a pavilion.

Like the inn, the menu is continually refreshed.

This dish is sublime, fresh salmon from Nova Scotia served with Spaetzle, a soy cream French and Asian infused sauce with poached broccoli, and there is so much more.

- Everything is homemade.

We do tagliatelle that we use with our seared U-10 scallops.

We do the gnocchi that are made in house properly, I think, with the perfect share of the potato and flour.

Those will be served on their own, just with a little bit of beef tips and a Madeira cream sauce.

- Everything is heavenly here.

And then we learned about the cooking classes, which I attend quite often.

And then the trips came.

So we've gone with Lil and Lori on a couple of the trips to France, which have been outstanding.

- [Stephanie] Lil and Lori offer something for everyone, keeping longtime guests coming back and attracting new ones to this hidden treasure.

- The Burke Manor Inn and Pavilion is at 303 Burke Street in Gibsonville.

Their restaurant, Saint Jacques at Burke Manor is open for lunch Thursday through Saturday, and dinner Wednesday through Saturday.

To book a room or make a reservation at Saint Jacques, give them a call at [336] 449-6266 or visit them online at burkemanor.com.

Our next overnight stay takes us to Canton, where we found an inn that's been entertaining guests since 1919.

Let's linger over spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, delicious foods and more at the Pisgah Inn.

[quaint music] - We're on the observation deck at the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We're at an elevation of 5,000 feet.

Pisgah is a great place to get away.

We're only 30 minutes from Asheville, Waynesville, or Brevard, but it feels like you're 1,000 miles away.

There's hiking trails that lead in every direction from the inn.

You can climb to the summit of Mount Pisgah, which is 5,700 feet high.

But right here on this deck, we're actually 5,000 feet.

So it's a great place to get away, hike, have great food, and just decompress.

[quaint music] The original Mount Pisgah Forest Inn was built in 1919.

It's no longer here.

In the mid '60s, the Blue Ridge Parkway came through this area and the park service decided a new facility needed to be built.

This is the new facility, and it's been here since the mid '60s.

Pisgah Inn today consists of 51 hotel rooms, a restaurant, a gift shop, a country store, and a wine bar.

[quaint music] - We have a very diverse menu, a little something for everybody.

Some people want to come up for the comfort food and the Pisgah favorites, like the pot pie, the French onion soup, the trout.

Then we have a lot of opportunities for the foodie.

We've got racks of lambs, seared scallops, elk loin, all sorts of foodie adventures for you.

- We come here quite often, we stay, we come to dinner.

We've had many, many wonderful meals.

We enjoy the whole atmosphere of the place.

We like to come early, sit on the rockers, have a little cocktail, little snack, and prepare ourselves for dinner.

- [Bruce] All the rooms have either one king or two double beds, private bath, balcony or porch.

And the most important thing is that every room faces that great south view.

- We have a favorite room that we always try to have.

We've been coming here since 2003.

So special occasions, just during the week, we drive up from Hendersonville.

It's just a wonderful experience.

The staff, they've become like family to us.

I feel we belong here.

- It's a great experience, you know, they get to be like family after a while.

They come by and they call you out to the table and you stop by and see how their experience was.

And it's good to hear the constant improvement year after year.

'Cause that's our number one goal, is to get a little bit better every year.

- My favorite time of the day up here is dusk, when the sun is setting, sitting on my balcony or porch facing that great view with a good cabernet, it doesn't get any better than that.

- We celebrated our 60th anniversary by coming here a few weeks ago.

We love it, so there'd be no other place that we would rather come than here.

- [laughs] We've celebrated many anniversaries up here.

And yes, it is.

It is a very romantic place.

The drive up here, coming for dinner, walking the grounds, leave the world behind, and just the two of you.

- If you've never been here before, I encourage you to try to get up here.

Call ahead, book a reservation in the dining room, book a reservation for a room.

Come up here and join us.

But if you can't get a reservation, I still invite you to come up and just stand on this deck without a reservation.

They can have a glass of wine in the wine bar and enjoy that great view because that's what it's all about.

And that view belongs to all of us.

We're in the one of the best national parks in the country.

- We love to come to get away, commune with nature.

The views are absolutely spectacular.

We've seen quite a few mountains and these are our favorites.

It's not far from any place, but it's a world away.

[quaint music] - What do I love most about the Pisgah Inn?

What do you love most about your children?

I've been here 45 years, it does feel like it's a child.

And I love it when it's good.

And I love it when it's bad.

And I love it when it's great.

And I just love it all the time.

[quaint music] - [Announcer] The Pisgah Inn is at 408 Blue Ridge Parkway in Canton.

To book your room, give them a call at [828] 235-8228 or visit them online at pisgahinn.com.

I'm here with Michael Fuko-Rizzo, the proprietor and innkeeper of the Julian Price House here in Greensboro.

And this home is absolutely stunning.

How long have you owned it?

- We bought the house in 2016.

We took us a few years to restore it, and we've been open for guests since 2019.

So when we bought it in 2016, it needed quite a bit of restoration.

And this, everything you see in here is original.

We took out every piece of hardware and had it restored.

These are all the original steel casement windows, the original hardwood floors, all of the woodwork, the plaster ceiling in this room.

There are five guest suites that we have open.

You have the option to rent by the room, or some guests rent the entire estate, just depending on what they're doing.

The house is four stories.

It's somewhere between 10 and 11,000 square feet.

It's categorized as 31 rooms, and there's a complete underground level that's hidden from the street that's an identical footprint of this that we're on.

[jazzy music] Outside we have 1.6 acres of manicured gardens.

The only thing on the grounds that are original are the trees.

Every other plant that you see out there, the thousands of them, have been put in by us.

We wanted to create a home.

This is our home, and we share that home with the public.

So I walk through this room.

Part of my guest speech is, "Yeah, kick your feet up, read an iPad, read a book, have a glass of wine," just like that.

It is meant... And I also tell people it's not a museum.

So it is full of historical books of the 1930s and '40s, an 1800s piano.

This is 16th century artwork behind you.

But at the same time, I have 10-year-old twin girls and they can flip off the couch.

So it is meant to be enjoyed by everyone.

- [Deborah] Michael, tell me about some of the unique history around this home.

- So the house was built in 1929 for Julian Price.

He was the president of Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company, which is today owned by Lincoln Financial Group.

It was built in 10 months.

It was started during the Great Depression.

There would've been a lot of people here working, creating this place.

- This is quite a find.

So what are you hearing back from guests?

- They absolutely love the experience here.

So we personally greet everybody, either myself or Lynn that works with us.

We greet everybody, we give them a tour, we get them settled in their rooms.

So it is a very hands-on personal experience.

I've had people come from Alaska to see the house.

I have had people come from Europe because they know the history and have read about it.

We've had famous celebrities stay here that have found us.

Yeah, our most famous celebrity is Carrie Underwood.

She stayed with us, but it's anybody coming into town for the Greensboro Aquatics Center, for soccer, for the new tanker center that we have downtown.

It's just a variety of parents visiting their kids.

The most popular feedback that we get is the details of the house.

So whether it's the artwork or the little tchotchke on the shelf, me, how did we compile so much and make it feel so homey?

I mean, that's, that's took us over a year to do.

So that sense of home is what we hear back the most from guests.

- Well, Michael, that is just a fascinating story.

I can't wait to explore the home more.

Thanks so much.

- Thank you for coming.

- The Julian Price House is at 301 Fisher Park Circle in Greensboro.

To book your room, or even the entire estate, give them a call at [336] 510-0519 or go online to julianpricehouse.com.

When Producer Seraphim Smith was painting a mural in downtown Beaufort, he stayed at a nearby B&B and made friends with the owners.

Let's check in with Seraphim to see why the Inn on Turner has received such glowing reviews.

- This is my latest mural.

Sponsored by Arts In Beaufort, it depicts native flowers and butterflies.

It adorns this long-running beloved convenience store, Big Daddy's.

While painting here for several weeks, I became friends with the management of Inn on Turner.

This award-winning bed and breakfast has over 700 5-star reviews on TripAdvisor.

Innkeepers Kim and John had me over for coffee and homemade blueberry muffins, and I got a chance to ask them more.

- We like to think that we're not just a place to lay your head, it's an experience.

Guests say, you know, "I wasn't sure what to expect."

So we start it by saying, we provide, you know, cuisine, comfort, and care.

We just feel like part of travel should be getting rest, getting good rest so you can have big adventures.

- [Seraphim] They even have a sweet garden, rockers and a port swing for a ultimate chill.

- Our guest demographic they don't wanna just pop in and be a tourist.

For such a small county, the Crystal Coast has just expansive activities and things to explore for all interests.

We try to customize your experience here so that it fits your needs and what you're looking to immerse in.

You have maritime history, we're on the Civil War trail, but you also have the ability to immerse yourself in nature and really be able to decompress, because what better way to decompress than with the sound of the ocean behind you, or hiking a beach trail looking for seashell treasures or going through our maritime forest, paddling truly crystal clear waters?

Hence why it's called the Crystal Coast, right?

So there's a lot of things to do and see that help you find work-life balance, find the ability to defrag and refresh and restore so that when you get away, be it for two nights, be it for a week, you go back ready to tackle life again, feeling recharged.

Now you're going to get fresh, local, sustainable foods, menus that are sourced here.

You're going to get the comfort of a modern day hotel steeped in history, but you're also gonna get the care of full service concierge that's gonna help you make the most of your time away.

You know, it's the whole enchilada of how it nurtures you.

And that's what we wanna do when you're here as a guest, is nurture you so that you can like, take a deep breath and take a load off.

- In our previous life, I was a builder, Kim was a designer.

We both worked in the hospitality industry with cooking, front of house, back of house.

And when we saw the Inn for sale, it just seemed like a natural fit to bring all these things together and start this business.

- It's been a really cool adventure.

We find our farm partners, our micro vendors like Sea Oats, who does our toiletries, our candles; Joe Merrill, who does our farm produce; and Harlowe Custom Microgreens.

You're supporting our community.

So it's full circle.

And I think that really, not only inspires us, but inspires our guests because, you know, you become part of our community when you stay at Inn on Turner.

[gentle music] With wellness travel in mind, we want you to come here, be able to take a deep breath of salt air and have some time just to take in all that the Crystal Coast has to offer.

- [Seraphim] Once you've come here, you'll see why I enjoy this little town so much.

And the Inn on Turner?

It's a great place to stay on the perfect getaway down east.

- The Inn on Turner is at 217 Turner Street in Beaufort.

To plan your stay, give them a call at [919] 272-6144 or visit them online at innonturner.com.

Opening a bed and breakfast is a romantic idea, and that's what first drew Brian and Crysti Everhart to do just that in Mount Airy.

In fact, you could say they poured their heart and soul into it, which is fitting, because the name of the bed and breakfast that they purchased is Heart and Soul.

[gentle music] - Oh, it couldn't be more appropriate.

Yeah, definitely.

- We give it all and, you know, we want their experience to be awesome.

- [Deborah] And yet the Everharts were new to the world of B&Bs.

- I had never been to a bed and breakfast in my entire life, and neither had Crysti.

And, you know, being in sales, I traveled around, so I'm a, you know, a regular hotel guy.

And it wasn't until I started looking for a bed and breakfast and I stayed in some that I said, "Wow, this is very unique.

It's an experience."

- I've never stayed in one, but I've seen every Hallmark movie ever made with every bed and breakfast that has ever been available.

And a big fan of "The Gilmore Girls."

So, what else can I say?

- [Deborah] Brian's background in sales was a plus, and Crysti had been an event planner for decades.

- And as a result of that, I've always wanted to have a bed and breakfast.

And where I lived in Orange County, California, that wasn't a possibility.

- [Deborah] But Mount Airy was the perfect place, in part because their grandchildren lived in the state and they found a wonderful Victorian home there built in 1901 for prominent local merchant, William Edward Merritt.

It was already a bed and breakfast, so they bought it, moved to North Carolina and became innkeepers.

- The thing that sets this one apart to me is the care that Crysti and Brian pour into it.

I have never felt so pampered.

- It's just, they're just so nice.

Crysti remembers everything that you like.

- You know, and that's kind of what she's all about.

She likes all the special details, little appointments that not everybody sees, but they're appreciated.

- [Deborah] That's certainly the case with each of the five guest rooms, all king size and all with private baths.

- They're all very large, roomy, comfortable, not too hard, not too soft.

- They're cozy, they're true to the time period of the house.

- There are two downstairs.

One is called the Merritt Room.

The Merritt Room is named after the original owner, William Merritt.

- [Deborah] This is one reason it's the most popular room, the large and luxurious bathroom.

- ]Crysti] Right beside it is the Mount Airy Room, and it signifies the last stop and it's all done in a theme of trains.

And then if you wanna go upstairs, we have three rooms up there.

- [Deborah] Those are the Stafford, Coventry, and Cardinal rooms.

- And the Cardinal Room is the only room that has like a separate sitting room.

- [Deborah] But where Crysti really shines is in the kitchen each morning.

- I have to say, it's the best breakfast I've ever had.

- The starter that we're gonna feature today is called the April Fools.

It's a southern popular dish.

It is strawberries and oranges mixed together and on top it has a whipped cream creme fresh with sugar wafers, and then a drizzle of actual Mount Airy honey on top.

- [Deborah] The rest of the breakfast comes next.

- It's a bacon and cheese and egg spinach pie along with tomato caprese.

- Wow.

- A homemade blueberry muffin and a side of bacon.

- Woo.

- Good Lordy.

- Woo.

- I could hurt myself with it.

[siren wails] - [Deborah] And that is the sound of the squad car tour, arriving to take guests on a trek around Mount Airy.

It picks up at the inn, along with the Good Time Trolley, [bell ringing] just another part of the total experience these new innkeepers have crafted that keep guests coming back for more.

- Brian's a great conversationalist.

He's gonna talk to you about things you care about.

He's gonna relate to you.

Crysti is also preparing things for you.

And so the sense of feeling welcome and more than anything cared about, I think, is what makes this a special place.

[gentle music] - Heart and Soul Bed and Breakfast is at 618 North Main Street in Mount Airy.

To book a room, give them a call at [336] 789-0126, or go online to heartandsoulbb.com.

Well, that's it for tonight's show.

We love bringing you stories about unique places to stay all around our state.

And we wanna thank the Julian Price House here in Greensboro for hosting us.

It is a true charmer if you're ever visiting the area.

And if you've missed anything in tonight's show, remember you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org or find us on our YouTube channel.

Have a great North Carolina weekend.

everyone.

[cheerful music] [cheerful music continues] [cheerful music continues] [cheerful music continues] [cheerful music continues] [cheerful music continues] [cheerful music continues] [cheerful music continues] [cheerful music ends] - [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by VisitNC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains, across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier-island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[piano outro]