Guests find breathtaking beauty at the Red Horse Inn in Landrum.
A sweep of verdant rolling pasture hemmed in by white farm fences greets you on the stone-walled terrace of the Red Horse Inn. In the distance rise the hazy peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Gazing out at this idyllic scene, you are suddenly struck by how quiet it is here; on a sunny day, the profound silence is broken only by birdsong and buzzing insects.
This silence, this setting, is what brings people here. “A little slice of heaven” is how Mary Wolters described the undulating 200 acres off Highway 14 in Landrum, on which she and her husband, Roger, sited the Red Horse Inn in 1996. Mary, who named the inn for a horse she owned at the time, ran the inn until her son, Christian, took the reins in 2017.
“Our clientele comes here to disconnect,” Christian explains. “They don’t come to socialize.” That’s why he instituted self-check-in and check-out, and why he places items for the morning meal (muffins, yogurt, breakfast bars, orange juice) inside the refrigerators in each of the four rooms and six luxurious hillside cottages before guests arrive. “Sometimes, I don’t even see my guests for the entire time they’re here,” he says.
Though his mother passed away in 2019, Christian proudly continues her legacy of hospitality. The family has always kept horses here—including Secret, the great-granddaughter of US Triple Crown winner Secretariat. Now, Christian and his wife, Allison, have embraced more elements of agritourism, adding three dogs, a friendly pig named Phinney, and three alpacas to their menagerie. The latter are the stars of the hour-long Alpaca Wine Experience, which entails sipping wine while interacting with and learning about these animals in the ’Paca Palace, the open-sided former horse shed that the couple has decorated as a living room—complete with a chandelier.
Over the past few years, Christian has added features to the inn, such as the lovely back terrace and the wine bar just inside. Open from Friday to Sunday evenings, the wine bar fuels weekend Wine on the Terrace events, featuring live music and open to the public (for a small cover charge). These evenings provide great opportunities for watching the sunset over the mountains, which can be quite spectacular, particularly after a rain, notes Christian.
“We stop to watch a sunset or listen to the frogs and the crickets chirping at night—that’s the why of it all,” adds Allison. Their guests, the couple has observed, visibly release when they sit on the terrace and take in the splendid scene around them . . . it seems they were just waiting to exhale.
Red Horse Inn Spans History
Right off Highway 414, a mile from the Red Horse Inn, you’ll find Campbell’s Covered Bridge, the only remaining covered bridge—of the 20 of such structures that once existed—in South Carolina. Built by Charles Irwin Willis in 1909, the 38-foot-long pine span across Beaverdam Creek now forms part of an 18-acre park, where it shares the site with picnic tables, a short nature trail, and the ruins of an old grist mill and home site.
You Can Go
At Red Horse Inn, weekend Wine on the Terrace (April through November) and the Alpaca Wine Experience are open to the public, along with other happenings throughout the year. Among them are special music events, a Halloween costume contest, and a 5K trail run that weaves through the network of wooded paths on the property in spring and fall.
To reserve tickets for Wine on the Terrace or the Alpaca Wine Experience, and other public events, go to redhorseinn.com.
Red Horse Inn, 45 Winstons Chase Ct., Landrum, 864.909.1575, redhorseinn.com
