For more information about The Inn at Blackstone, visit www.innatblackstone.com, call 434-686-5210, or email innatblackstone.fd@gmail.com. Public business address: 707 West Fourth Street, Blackstone, VA 23824. Service area: Blackstone
Business & Innovation · Business feature
The Inn at Blackstone gives a former college a new gathering place
The building now welcoming wedding parties and overnight guests at The Inn at Blackstone has spent much of its history bringing people together. It has served as a school, wartime housing and a retreat center. Its latest chapter began in 2022, when Kalyan Hospitality reopened the restored property as a boutique hotel.
The building now welcoming wedding parties and overnight guests at The Inn at Blackstone has spent much of its history bringing people together. It has served as a school, wartime housing and a retreat center. Its latest chapter began in 2022, when Kalyan Hospitality reopened the restored property as a boutique hotel.
The inn occupies the former Blackstone College for Girls campus on West Fourth Street. The institution began in 1894 as Blackstone Female Institute; the present classical revival brick building followed a fire in 1922.
According to the inn’s account of the property, the college temporarily provided housing for servicemen and their families during World War II. It resumed education after the war but held its final commencement in 1950. A new use followed in 1955, when it became a Methodist retreat and conference center.
For decades, the property continued to welcome groups before a period of vacancy following a small fire in 2016. Its restoration brought an existing local landmark back into use, retaining a place for gathering within a building already associated with community life.
Today, the independent hotel hosts weddings, corporate retreats, training events and leisure stays. For a wedding party, the combination of a venue and overnight accommodation creates an opportunity to keep more of the celebration in one place. Couples can discuss event arrangements and room needs directly with the team.
The setting also gives visitors a base in Blackstone, with local dining and shopping nearby. The inn’s appeal comes from the relationship between its architecture and its changing uses: rooms once associated with education and retreat are now part of a hospitality business welcoming a different generation of guests.
