The McKey — Hotel in Valdosta

Once a month I travel throughout the U.S. and next March we will be abroad taking in inspiration so we have a creative edge in design and see new things and stay active in design. I stay in a lot of designer accredited properties. I’m the owner of a design and construction business in Rosemary Beach Florida.

This weekend I took a trip to Valdosta GA to see my grand baby hours after her birth. Googled the best place I could find and first night landed at the Holiday inn Express. Clean ✅ decent ✅ but a little noisy and we’re just simply used to the Ritz Carlton as a standard for our types of stays and had to take what we could get. Did a little more research and found a hotel in the historic area with one 5 star review #themckey pictures looked beautiful so figured we’d go for it and cancel the other and check it out. 😍 I went from thinking I’ll never step foot in this town again to all of the sudden seeing it in a whole new light with new possibilities! Someone took a chance on this historic building, renovated it with the very best quality work and created an entire new experience for me the second half of the weekend.

My mood changed, the vibe changed, curiosity and not disgust with this town changed. That’s the POWER of design! The footprint of #ValdostaGA is better thanks to whomever decided to create the McKey. If you find yourself in this part of the country there is NO BETTER place to stay. I thought it would be fun to share… I’m beyond impressed with how they chose every detail of this restored and updated building. High level craftsmanship! #designinspiration #travelblogger #review #hospitality...

Outstanding renovation of an historic building in the Downtown Valdosta Historic District. We recently had a comfortable 3 -night stay in the "Orange Grove" suite on the fourth floor and while I would like to rate my stay at "5 stars", the accommodation needs a bit more to get that. The Orange Grove consists of 3 large rooms, but it is somewhat sparsely furnished for a large suite. The bedroom is large enough to include seating but there is none. There is no closet although a small rack for hanging gear is provided (we had to ask for hangers which were quickly provided). Also, there is no piece of furniture that offers drawer storage. The "living room" offers a large counter with apron front sink and mini fridge; small, round table with 2 chairs and another chair is provided; however, the room is large enough for a small sofa and additional seating. While there is a large flat screen TV in the bedroom (which can only be comfortably watched from the bed), the living room provides more than adequate wall space for a second TV, something I would expect in a large 3-room suite. A Keurig coffee station, microwave and filtered water machine are provided in the hallway, but a suite with a ton of counter space should have its own Keurig and small microwave. The bathroom is quite large with a nice walk-in shower although the vanity sink was surprisingly small, about the size of a bar sink. One final note for the "light sleeper", even on the forth floor you will get a fair amount of "road noise" which, of course, is traffic and "emergency...

The room was rather clean except for the dusty ceiling fan blades and the window moulding's cracking, peeling paint. Access was easy. Parking was not an issue. Excellent food was only a short walk away. The bed was comfy, the soaking tub a delight, the TV program viewing options grand. But the noise, holy moly! A door on the roof of an adjacent building was swinging in the breeze, creaking all night long, accompanied by intermittent rumbles from loud mufflers and exhaust pipes. And then there was the child, "Cloe," whose parents talked almost as loudly as she yowled and hooted. My wife and I know more about that family now than we had ever cared to learn because we happened to share a common wall with their suite. As noisy as it already was, however, the pièce de résistance was when the sonorous train horn blast came around 6am, then again at 8:15am. Due to the McKey's close proximity to the train tracks, the horn is unavoidable. This is a lovely space but it is noisy. Would we stay again? Sure. We would, however, ask for the quietest suite in the house. The outside noise is simply beyond the hotel's control, it's an incurable external...