The Sanctuary At Kiawah Island Golf Resort

Hotel description

Three cheers for stylistically sensitive development. A brand-new American golf resort too often means a bland and faceless building full of identical L-shaped bedrooms, but the Sanctuary at Kiawah Island just isn’t that sort of place. Instead imagine a resort with all the comforts and luxuries of a modern five-star hotel, but with an architectural style transplanted from the antebellum mansions of old South Carolina.

Of course with 255 rooms and suites this is no plantation house. But big resorts have advantages that smaller hotels often can’t match, especially in facilities. Not many boutique operations can operate a full-service spa, much less a tennis clinic, a 65-foot swimming pool, or five (five!) golf courses designed by the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye.

Even the activity-agnostic will find plenty to like about the Sanctuary, not least the ten miles of Atlantic beachfront. Most of the rooms and suites face the sea, and they’re quite worthy of holing up in — beds are plush, the décor is soothing, and the bathrooms are so lavishly outfitted you might entirely forget about the spa. A generous handful of restaurants and bars completes the package, and this place is a natural wedding venue, with gorgeous outdoor spaces and no end of function rooms.