Karen Chason

Review of Lake Rabun Hotel

My husband and I stayed here on a last minute trip...

My husband and I stayed here on a last minute trip to the lake for 2013 Labor Day Weekend. They were very accommodating with a last minute reservation and special price. Everyone we talked to on the phone and at the hotel was very friendly and provided great customer service.

I have read some other reviews since we stayed there and I would like to address those here from my point of view. I think many of the bad reviews I have seen must have been done before their renovation because we had a wonderful experience in this small mountain retreat.

We reserved the Lakemont room but had a chance to look at other rooms as well. Please remember that although the name has the word hotel in it I feel it is really a bed and breakfast (B&B). If you have never stayed at a B&B before then I can see how this might be a bit of shock with it's coziness and size. The 8 rooms/adjoining bathrooms are VERY small with just enough space for a bed and a small space to walk around it. This was not a problem for us as we didn't come up there to spend all day and night in the room. For the small amount of time we spent in the room to just sleep and shower it was perfectly fine. I am a lover of historic preservation and as such you have to remember that in order to preserve historical integrity many places like this can not put in the large spaces we may be accustomed to. The common areas with couches, small fridge, coffee maker, cookies/snacks, etc. can be a bit noisy to those in the rooms as people mill about and get on with their day. You can definitely hear everything that goes on in the rooms. So we just remembered to stay quiet out of respect for other guests. There are no TV's in the rooms/upstairs common areas so we read books. If you plan to get "lovey dovey" you may want to wait until you get back home! :-) The rooms were cozy with their mountain decor and clean. I loved the organic and locally made bath products. The only problem with our room was that it was a bit warm since the window wouldn't close properly so I'm sure it wasn't helping the A/C run efficiently. Our room window overlooked the restaurant patio/screened in porch so we could hear everything the guests below were talking about at dinner. However, the guests were gone by 10 p.m. so this wasn't really a problem to us. The common area downstairs had 1 TV so my husband was able to catch a little football at night. The hotel does have free Wi-Fi but I found it to be very slow and spotty so I gave up and enjoyed the quiet time.

Since the hotel is across the street and up the hill from the lake there is no real view of the lake except maybe in winter. It seemed to us from the research we did and talking to many others that Lake Rabun is very much a private lake as there are really no areas for the public to relax by the lakeside and/or swim. Most of the areas seem to be private homes/property. We did find one public area owned by the National Forest Service but the swimming area wasn't very clean since it was in a cove area of the lake. It would be a great place to camp or put in a canoe/kayak. We ended up at Lake Burton 25 minutes away to swim and relax lakeside. If you have a boat/canoe there is also a dock/marina within walking distance of the hotel. But if you are just going to swim/picnic with the kids then this might not be the place to go especially since this is an adults only hotel.

The hotel restaurant is open to the public for dinner so make reservations and expect a full house. The restaurant was one of the best places we have eaten in a VERY long time and with an award-winning chef it far outweighs some of the fancier places we have been in Atlanta. We are serious when we say that we would drive the hour and a half for dinner at this place. The food was generous portions and the menu changes seasonally. The ambiance/decor is perfect. Breakfast came with our stay in the hotel and it was the most amazing breakfast of any B&B stay we have ever had by far. The breakfast crowd was light since it is limited to those staying there.