Shenandoah Mansions, an Ash Hotel

Shenandoah Mansions turned a six-story former apartment house in Richmond's Fan district into the neighborhood's first hotel, a 73-room, folk-gothic reinvention from Ash that opened in February 2025. It pairs whitewashed, jewel-toned rooms with an all-day European-style café and a moody cocktail bar downstairs.

The place

Shenandoah Mansions occupies a six-story, early-20th-century apartment building on the edge of Richmond's historic Fan district, a leafy grid of Victorian rowhouses near VCU. It is the first hotel the neighborhood has ever had.

The concept

Ash, the New York-based hospitality company known for turning storied residential buildings into theatrical small hotels, bought the former apartment house at the end of 2021 and spent three years converting it, keeping the red-brick facade intact while reworking the interior under the creative direction of Xavier Donnelly. The 73 rooms and 4 suites lean into an American-gothic, folk-art mood: whitewashed walls, four-poster beds in jewel tones, block-printed quilts referencing the folk artists of the Shenandoah Valley, and hand-painted bathroom tile, with a stated concept built around "matriarchs and grande dames" and a touch of witchcraft-and-fever-dream fantasy. Because the building was residential, not a former hotel, the whole operation — rooms, restaurant, retail, bar — is a first for the address, which is what qualifies it as a genuinely new opening rather than a renovation of an existing hotel.

Dining & wellness

The ground floor holds an all-day café run in an "iconic European café seen through an Americana lens" style, plus a restaurant and a moodier cocktail bar and "midnight garden." There's also an on-site retail shop, complimentary cruiser bikes in warmer months, and Ash's own bath products in the rooms; pets are welcome.