I experienced a lot of firsts last weekend. Hummingbird Pie. Sweet Potato Waffles. A Canopy Bed with 600-thread count sheets. Feeding an alpaca. Spending a night in Brandenburg, Kentucky.
No, Brandenburg is no vacation mecca. It’s about an hour west of Louisville. You take 64 west to Corydon, head south across the bridge back into Kentucky. From there, its just a mile or so to the Southern Grace Bed & Breakfast.
It’s the perfect “middle-of-nowhere” retreat, situated on several acres. The modern-looking architecture sticks out here, a luxurious oasis of a home that’s off the main road a bit, near a vineyard. There’s a garden out back and the owners, David and Theresa Padgett, raise chickens and alpacas.
But the Bed & Breakfast itself is a luxurious and spacious home complete with amenities like a jacuzzi tub, plasma TVs, internet access, a fully-equipped, and stocked, kitchen. There’s an outdoor pool and patio. And then there are the hosts.
Their son built the home in 2000, and the Padgetts have lush living quarters downstairs. They tend to a garden in the back yard, which yielded 50 pounds of sweet potatoes last year (hence the Sweet Potato Waffles). Guests order their breakfasts at night, and it’s ready in the morning, once you wake up to the sweet smells of bacon frying and coffee perking.
Now I’d never stayed in a B&B before, so the hospitality of the Padgetts was a surprising treat. Maybe this is a B&B tradition. We sat and talked a while after breakfast.
They’ve just been open for business since December, but already have a bunch of five-star reviews and raves. Theresa told me she thinks the place will attract a steady stream of guests, if only because the alternative of staying in a hotel is so much less personal.
There may not be much to do in Brandenburg, but the Padgetts are authorities on area attractions, such as the Doe Run Inn a few miles away, where many Southern Grace guests go for dinner. It’s not far to Squire Boone Caverns in Indiana. But there are plenty of unadvertised walking trails and fishing holes that David and Theresa know about. We went outside and fed the alpacas later on.
There’s also a social aspect in the home, which has four guest rooms. We met Evan Graham, a 21-year-old Canadian biking his way from San Diego to Washington, who’d met his mother here for a stop on his 40-day journey. Here’s a link to an interview I did with him on the back porch.
In fact, David and Theresa were so nice they invited me to offer up a night at Southern Grace as a prize to readers of LouisvilleKY.com. So watch the site and we will give that free night away in the near future.
