Alaska Amazon Australia Brit. The drive through the white-brick lamppost gates of The Greenbrier takes you back to an era when elegant living on a grand scale was an art. The six-story, white Georgian hotel, with its 64 whitewashed buildings strewn over 6,500 acres of hill and valley, dominates this tiny town in the Allegheny Mountains of rural West Virginia.
Guests can prepare to be pampered.
The rumbling of trucks on the nearby highway and an occasional train across the road are the only reality checks once you surrender your car and your cares to the green-uniformed bellmen. The Greenbrier has been many things since its beginnings in 1778 as a group of log cabins. Early on, it was a health resort and gathering place for the Old South's social and political elite. It was used as an internment center for foreign diplomats after Pearl Harbor was bombed. It's a very thin segment of the market that has the ability to go anywhere in the world whenever they please and when they get there only the best is going to be good enough for them.