Five-star restaurant and boutique hotel dominates a rural Virginia town, even the county, and it plans to get bigger

The new Patty O's replaced a local cafe. "A contractor floated the idea of saving money by installing painted Styrofoam beams," Tim Carrington reports. The idea was "waved away derisively" by the owner. (Luke Christopher, Foothills Forum)

About 225 people work at The Inn at Little Washington, a boutique hotel with a five-star restaurant in the county seat of Rappahannock County, Virginia, which was created before Washington, D.C., which lies 90 miles to the west and provides much of the enterprise's business. IT's the county's largest private employer, and it wants to get even bigger and "translate its dazzling culinary success to a broadened hospitality and retail enterprise," Tim Carrington reports for the Rappahannock News and the Foothills Forum, a local philanthropy that bolsters the weekly newspaper's coverage.

Rappahannock County (Wikipedia map)

The story is not just a news feature. Carrington writes, "In a county marked by divisive fights over new structures and new ideas, the Inn’s inventions might be expected to ignite the next culture war. In the 1990s, some local residents railed against the Inn’s postcard-perfect renovations and its parade of glitzy visitors. And the more recent displacement of the humble Country Cafe to make room for the upscale Patty O’s stirred resentful notes on the county’s RappNet listserv. But Washington residents have become accustomed to living in a company town, aware that the Inn generates as much as $600,000 in meals and lodging taxes for Washington’s coffers. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that another 10 rooms would harvest an additional $100,000 in taxes for the town."

That's a lot of money for a town of only 130 people. The inn owns 25 structures in Washington, and has only 23 rooms, most of which cost over $1,000 a night. It wants to add as many as 10, plus an event space, pool, fitness center and spa, and maybe cottages "for guests seeking regular access with few maintenance burdens," Carrington reports. "A meal for two at the Inn – after a bottle of wine and payment of state and county taxes – tops $600."

The proprietor and chef is Patrick O'Connell, 76. Carrington writes, "A recent documentary features O’Connell about to sample an offering from a nervous sous-chef seeking approval; the fork poised mid-air, a smiling O’Connell says, 'It’s either art or it’s garbage.'" The restaurant is the world's longest-tenured Forbes Travel Guide five-star eatery, one of 14 Michelin Star restaurants in the U.S. and the only one on the East Coast outside New York City. The hotel is the longest-tenured American Automobile Association 5 Diamond Award winner for combined accommodation and restaurant.