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Beaufort (NOTE: This B&B has new owners since our last visit). Ron and Carrol Kay converted an abandoned Neoclassic Revival-style home facing the Beaufort River into a homey, hospitable B&B full of personality. Relocating after twenty years in South Florida, they were heading for the North Carolina mountains in 1989 when they happened on Beaufort and decided to stay. Their establishment defines the essence of a B&B as categorized by Ron, who was founding president of the South Carolina Bed & Breakfast Association and drafted the legislation for the South Carolina Bed & Breakfast Act of 1998. It is run by hands-on resident owners, has common rooms for gathering purposes and breakfast, and delivers a high level of personal service. Guests respond with glowing accounts of "great hospitality" and keep TwoSuns filled most of the time. Remarkably, the Kays do all the work themselves. A large parlor across the front is the heart of the house, built in 1917 and bearer of a state preservation award in 1998. One side is a comfortable living room, where Carrol is apt to serve guests iced tea in Mason jar mugs or wine, sherry and brandy poured from decanters. Here is where Ron holds forth on topics great and small (not for naught is he the founder of the Eastern Bunch of the International Banana Club, the criteria for which include maintaining a sense of humor and having fun in a hectic world). Bananas are a low-key decorative motif. More obvious are the two looms occupying the other side of the parlor. Here is where Carrol, a juried weaver, produces her TwoSuns Handwovens creations. Her wearable art and home accessories are displayed at the South Carolina Artisans Center in Walterboro. Her showy window treatments and bed coverings are evident in the six guest rooms. Furnished with antiques, all have private baths and king or queensize beds. Two contain extra day beds. Country quilts characterize one room and an Oriental motif another. A third has a Victorian library feeling. Chamber D is known for its rare full-body brass shower that sprays from every direction. The newest is the third-floor Skylight Room, where a pair of queensize wicker beds are placed beneath an elaborate greenhouse skylight created originally for ventilation. Two window seats are in dormers at either end. Decorated in dusty rose and mauve, this room comes with a TV and a guest refrigerator. Guests enjoy a wraparound veranda with panoramic bay view. Two upstairs bedrooms open onto a screened front sleeping porch. Carrol does the baking and Ron cooks the breakfast, a convivial affair taken at three tables for four in the dining room. Fruits and breads precede the main event, perhaps thick, wedge-shaped french toast with peach and strawberry glaze, accompanied by a mixed grill of turkey ham and turkey sausage. Ron is well known for his crêpes and his le croissant deux soleil, a specialty layered with shrimp or turkey ham, cheese and perhaps asparagus or artichoke hearts, "depending on how adventurous the guests are." Ron, a raconteur, is always on the go. He’s the omnipresent host, a B&B consultant, an artist/musician, and a sponsor of an annual community Halloween event and cartoon carnival, among others. Ask about the inn’s obscure name and be mystified. Ask about the Banana Club and be entertained. (843) 522-1122 or (800) 532-4244. E-mail - info@twosunsinn.com For more information: www.twosunsinn.com Six rooms with private baths. Doubles, $154 to $181. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in the Southeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2000. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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