Inn at Little Washington. Credit: Inn at Little Washington

A Bigger Vision for Little Washington

8 Minute read

20 Jul 2026

Writer

Tucked away in the verdant Virginia countryside near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, The Inn at Little Washington has been a pilgrimage-worthy destination for nearly half a century. The two-Michelin-star restaurant and its chef-owner, Patrick O’Connell, have earned six James Beard Awards between them, including Outstanding Restaurant and the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Inn’s story extends beyond culinary excellence to the transformation of the historic village around the AAA Five Diamond property. When it opened in 1978, it occupied a small, converted auto repair shop. Today, the Inn encompasses 26 buildings across 30 acres, assembled piece by piece through acquisitions, restorations, and new construction. “The big challenge is how to knit it all together and make it look intentional,” says O’Connell. “It’s very rewarding when you can create something that looks as if it’s always been there, which is our measure of success.”

Patrick O'Connell.

New elements are constantly being incorporated into the sprawling campus. A humble structure that once served as an 18th-century summer kitchen is now a luxurious two-story guest cottage called the Cardinal’s Nest. Its name pays threefold tribute to La Cardinale, whose owners helped establish the organization that became Relais & Châteaux; Virginia’s state bird; and the cottage’s proximity to a church. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms with soaking tubs, a butler’s kitchen, a private garden, and an outdoor hot tub. In the living room, an original stone fireplace sits beneath a vaulted ceiling crossed by dramatic wooden beams. “I wanted the beams in it to look as though they were taken from a ship’s hull that washed up somewhere in the tidewater,” says O’Connell.

Though the restoration draws on history, O’Connell is not beholden to it. “I’m definitely not a purist,” he says. “I find historic places often get too bogged down in meticulous historical accuracy. What I love about this town is that there’s no purity whatsoever. You have the most incredible mishmash of styles and architecture and changes. Something that attempts to remain static is not ideal.”

Beside the Cardinal’s Nest, a forest-green fence conceals another recent addition: an oval pool surrounded by black-and-white marble tile, its design inspired by those of the 1920s and 1930s. “Especially in a colonial town with ambience that we’re trying to evoke, I wanted it to look like a hidden garden, not a modern swimming pool,” says O’Connell. “The problem with swimming pools is they force you to look at them. They intrude on your vision, like a television set or a computer.”

For O’Connell, each new acquisition is an opportunity for storytelling. “I’m just the steward of these properties,” he says. “They will tell me what to do with them. Each one has an identity and their own little secret narrative to uncover. The important thing is to not impose your taste or style on a structure. That’s what too many designers and architects do. They want everybody to say, ‘Oh, that’s a blank-blank designed house.’ I like each house to have its individual character.”

There are always projects in the works. A small pond was recently added beside the Inn’s Field of Dreams, a pastoral area home to llamas, sheep, and chickens. As work on the pond neared completion, an unexpected opportunity arose to purchase three adjoining properties totaling roughly seven acres. The Inn snapped them up. O’Connell plans to transform a portion of the newly acquired land into a woodland garden and “a picnic spot that’s something out of a fairy tale,” he says. “A little oasis.”

The largest planned expansion is a carriage house-style hotel addition on the southern side of the original Inn. Designed around a courtyard and intended to look as though it has always been there, the new building will include a state-of-the-art spa, additional rooms, and an underground wine cellar.

Ground has not yet been broken, and details are still being finalized, but O’Connell’s travels will help shape the project. “When I travel, I seek out the best of the best of the best to see what solutions other people come up with and see how you feel,” he says. “There’s a lot of wonderfully crazy people out there doing exciting things.”