Holly Hotel

Built in 1891 as a railroad hotel on Battle Alley (so named for the drunken brawls common among wayfarers), the Holly Hotel's three-story Queen Anne-style building put up countless country-crossers in those turn-of-the-century boom years. It also saw a raid by Carrie Nation, two fires separated by 65 years to the hour, time served as a transient boarding house, and a monumental two-year renovation. The building's long, strange history has inspired countless legends and ghost stories—phantasmal cigar smoke from the inn's 1890s owner has been seen floating through the halls—but nowadays, the Holly Hotel is just as devoted to modern niceties as historic myth.

Three stories tall again, newly renamed, and sporting the warm, dark oak and Axminster carpeting of its wonder years, the Holly Hotel was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Today, the red-brick manse keeps its footing firm between past and future. The menu's signature dishes such as the beef wellington in veal-thyme reduction and the steamed Scottish salmon have gone unchanged since 1979, and every afternoon owner Chrissy hosts a Victorianesque tea party served on antique china. At the same time, the chefs employ an improvisational culinary method on the list of daily specials, rendered from fish, game, and other ingredients flown in fresh from across the world.

Beyond gourmet meals, the hotel also regales its guests with top-notch entertainment. The onsite comedy club features locally and nationally known jesters on weekends, offsetting the Victorian gas fixtures, stained-glass windows, and velvet wingback chairs with a healthy dollop of modern mirth and a cyborg wait staff.