COLUMBIA, S.C. — In October, USA TODAY ranked the 10 best historic hotels in the country, and one in Columbia, South Carolina ranked fifth.
Hotel Trundle is a boutique hotel on Taylor Street that honors the past by mixing old and new design.
Throughout the hotel, visitors can see original architecture of the three stores it once was.
“Each building has a date of historical significance so you have to design and build it back a certain way," co-owner Marcus Munse said. "So, it might mean you’re putting real plaster on the wall, hand done.”
Munse owns the hotel with his wife, Rita Patel. They told News19 the original buildings date back to the early 1900s and 1920s.
“In the space where our lobby is, that was Western Auto and the building we’re in now was Rose Talbert Paints," Patel explained in the interview.
The wall between then Western Auto and Rose Talbert Paints was knocked down, and original brick is exposed in the hotel's columns.
The third building, which used to be Powell Furniture Company, is behind the first two.
Munse and Patel bought the abandoned stores in 2016. Thanks to tax incentives for reconstructing historic buildings, they were able to create a boutique hotel of 41 rooms that balances a historic and modern feel.
“We had to figure out how this storefront was in the '20s and we had to deconstruct and build it back a certain way, so it’d look how it was in the ‘20s,” Munse said.
The floors, walls, and ceiling tiles throughout the hotel are from its past life. They even kept some wallpaper, framed as a piece of art.
Now, Hotel Trundle is being recognized by USA TODAY as one of the best historic hotels in the nation.
"It's very cool," Patel said with a smile.
And the recognition was especially sweet after a tough time last year due to the pandemic. The couple said they were inundated with cancellations and were forced to close for six weeks, but now business is doing great.