Garish or great? New over-the-top Gamecock hotel opens on USC campus
Want to spend the night in a hotel room with a Cockaboose lamp, stylized portraits of singer Darius Rucker, the late super-fan Bill “Oot-Oot” Golding and a giant, pinkish Gamecock headboard?
Welcome to the new Graduate hotel on the campus of the University of South Carolina.
The over-the-top hotel in the re-imagined former Inn at USC is more than just Gamecock and South Carolina themed. It is, well, dang near indescribable.
Some may think it’s garish. Others will think it’s great.
“When people come in and are a little bit shocked that’s been the most fun about becoming Graduate Columbia,” said Leanna Lee, the hotel’s director of sales.
The lobby is hot pink and black checkerboard.. The carpet features footballs, peaches and Carolina wrens. New York Mets great and former USC star Mookie Wilson peeks out from a sea of yellow baseballs. There’s a target over the toilet.
And there’s a hip bar/coffee shop/cafe called Poindexter.
All set in a classic, historic 1910 home called the Black House.
Yeah, I know.
“We kept the integrity of the historic home,” Lee said, noting that the last owner, 96-year-old Mary Black, still occasionally comes to visit.
The Columbia Graduate is the 16th in the chain of Chicago hotelier Ben Weprin, who specializes in acquiring boutique hotels in college towns.
The hotels are anchored to universities in college towns like Athens, Ga., Oxford, Miss., and Lincoln, Neb. And they are all funky, Lee said, or as she put it, “hand-crafted.”
All of the hotels are named to reflect their location, such as Graduate Athens, Graduate Richmond, Graduate Iowa City, etc.
Weprin’s A.J. Capital Partners also owns a stable of international luxury hotels.
“We pride ourselves on the sort of high to low,” Weprin said in a 2017 interview with the Hospitality Design publication.
“Look at a restaurant group that’s done a fancy restaurant and then a Shake Shack — they still have the same service, culture, and the same idea of taking whatever you do and being the best at it,” he said. “We take that approach to everything that we do, having the same hospitality culture regardless of price point or place in a market.”
Lee said that as funky as the hotel might be, the interior and decor are intended to stimulate the senses and tell the stories about USC and South Carolina.
“We’re storytellers,” Lee said. “When people come in and see something as shocking as a Gamecock headboard, once we start telling the stories (of the people and items portrayed), it becomes relatable to the people who have lived here, visited here or gone to school here.”
The hotel opened this week. Price were listed at $119 for a standard quest room to $199 for a king suite.
Poindexter bar and cafe is open to the public and non-guests are encouraged to visit, Lee said.
This story was originally published August 30, 2019 at 12:18 PM.