Thursday, April 10, 2025
Can’t wait for this year’s Georgetown Garden Tour on May 10? Across the river in Alexandria, you can start your spring horticultural sightseeing two weeks sooner.
During the Garden Club of Virginia’s Historic Garden Week, 29 separate tours invite the public into more than 120 private homes and gardens. Especially convenient for Georgetown residents: the Old Town Alexandria House and Garden Walking Tour, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Historic Garden Week’s opening day, Saturday, April 26.
The Archer Hotel courtyard.
Participants in the tour, hosted by the Garden Club of Alexandria and the Hunting Creek Garden Club, gain access to three homes and gardens on Prince Street, including the 1780s Michael Swope House; one on Wolfe Street with a collection of British paintings, drawings and watercolors; and one on S. St. Asaph Street boasting a 235-year-old mahogany tree.
Tickets are $55 when purchased online at gcvirginia.org and $60 when purchased the day of the tour at the Alexandria Visitors Center, 221 King St.
Also available that day: complimentary light refreshments at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 228 S. Pitt St., from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; a marketplace of specialty vendors at the Athenaeum, an 1851 Greek Revival building at 201 Prince St., from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and, for those who continue south six miles to George Washington’s Mount Vernon, a spring plant sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Whether or not you extend your Historic Garden Week getaway, an overnight in Old Town offers the chance to experience the many sights, shops and restaurants along the King Street Mile at your leisure. Right in the heart of everything are two recently reborn hotels: Hotel Heron and Archer Hotel.
Presiding over the corner of S. Washington and Prince Streets at 699 Prince — a short walk from the waterfront — is the six-story, 134-room Hotel Heron, named for the long-legged, fish-spearing bird that frequents Huntley Meadows Park to the south.
The hotel, which made its debut last spring, is an adaptive reuse of the 1926 George Mason Hotel, designed by architect William Lee Stoddart, with a new addition next door containing guest rooms and event space. (Mason’s estate, Gunston Hall in Lorton, is open to the public from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.) The original Colonial Revival structure, occupied by offices for decades, has been given a contemporary interior with historic notes, such as 18th-century paint colors and handmade tiles.
“Find Rest In The Nest,” beckons the hotel, with stylized herons as design elements throughout. Part of the Chicago-based Aparium Hotel Group, Hotel Heron was a project of May Riegler and the Gewirz family’s Potomac Investment Properties.
The hotel’s restaurant, featuring locally sourced, Mid-Atlantic cuisine, is Kiln, referencing Alexandria’s first documented potter, Henry Piercy, whose kiln was located nearby. In addition, there are two bars: the tented-ceilinged hideaway Francis Hall for craft cocktails; and Good Fortune, an open-air rooftop bar with Potomac views.
At the western end of the King Street Mile — a hop, skip and a jump from the King Street Metro station — the former Lorien Hotel & Spa, which opened at 1600 King St. as a Kimpton in 2009, is now the 107-room Archer Hotel. Centered on a standing street clock, its courtyard complex also comprises two restaurant spaces and three meeting rooms, one that opens onto a firepit-equipped patio.
The guiding spirit of the nine-hotel group is mystery man “Archer,” seemingly a stylish gent with a playful streak. Courtesy of Mr. Archer, guests have the use of a MoMA umbrella, bathrobes and two pairs of slippers they can take home, one with hearts and one with lightning bolts. “On the weekend, you see all our guests are walking around in the slippers,” remarked GM Johnie Valencia. Another Archer Hotels amenity: “Discover a sweet surprise, bedside, every night.”
The Hotel Heron lobby.
The hotel’s full-service spa is due to reopen under new management in July. Also coming this summer, in the former Brabo Brasserie space, is HomeGrown, “A Daytime Eatery.” Pending HomeGrown’s debut, breakfast is served across the courtyard in AKB. Noted for its brick-oven pizza, AKB has a rustic décor complete with taxidermy. “We added more heads” to keep “Frankie the Stag” company, explained Valencia.
The two boutique properties convey their distinct character in the hardcover volumes provided in each room: in Hotel Heron, “The Backyard Birdwatcher’s Bible”; in Archer Hotel, “The Little Prince” and “Bridge to Terabithia.”
Photos by Richard Selden.