Frontier City Vacation Packages

Escape the 21st century at Doe Run Inn

Central Kentuckians looking for a cozy inn to hole up in for a weekend retreat are spoiled for choice.

Some of the obvious ones include Boone Tavern in Berea, looking spiffy after a recent refurbishment and serving its mouth-watering spoonbread; Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg, the very picture of Southern gentility with its white columns and stately grounds; and the Trustees' House at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, the largest restored Shaker community in America. Less well known and farther away but equally worthy of a visit is Doe Run Inn in Brandenburg, about a 11/2-hour drive from Lexington.

The Shawnee Indians had long used the area's lush forests as a hunting ground when in 1778, Daniel Boone's brother Squire happened upon the rippling creek that flowed through the woods. He named it Doe Run Creek for the proliferation of deer that were drawn, along with elk and bison, to the area's salt licks.

A decade later, work started on a grist mill built of the local limestone, and in the early 1800s, one of the stonemasons recorded in the mill's log was one Thomas Lincoln, father of Abraham. Throughout the 19th century, the mill's fortunes waxed and waned, and it was being used as a barn when, in 1901, the new owner, W.D. Coleman, converted it into a hotel called Sulfur Wells. His hope was that the same salt and sulfur waters that had attracted wildlife would be a draw for humans suffering from arthritis and other medical conditions. Indeed, records show that people came from hundreds of miles to take the "healing" waters.

Don't expect a saltwater spa if you go to today's incarnation of the Doe Run Inn — all the water is city water — but you can expect a rural resting spot rarely found in today's fast-paced world. There are no McDonald's, Starbucks, video arcades or shopping malls within miles. This is the place to get totally unplugged, meaning it won't appeal to everyone.

The inn's 11 rooms and one log cabin (great for families) have no TVs, computers or phones, and even cell phone service is spotty. What the inn does have is antique reproduction furniture and frontier-chic furnishings. The restaurant, rated one of seven signature restaurants for Kentucky cuisine by the Kentucky Department of Travel and Tourism, serves comfort food: fried chicken, country ham, vegetables, corn pudding and homemade biscuits.

Try to get a table on the porch overlooking the creek if you can. Although it can be crowded for Sunday lunch, on a summer evening, with fireflies dancing in the woods, it's lovely.

Delhi NCR CBD rents to rise further in 2011, SBD leasing market to ...

With rents moving up slowly in the CBD and remaining stable in the SBD in 1Q11, both these markets are slowly but surely on the rise, leaving the market trough behind them, as per Abhishek Kiran Gupta, Head – Research & REIS, Jones Lang LaSalle India. Landlords have started to take advantage of low availability in the CBD to increase rents as the CBD is witnessing an active churn to the stock, while the SBD leasing market will continue to remain robust and witness moderate to good absorption. Occupiers will look to lock in spaces as rents are all set to see an incremental growth in 2011, with vacancy rates expected to drop over the year.

The period ending 1Q11 witnessed moderate activity in the office market in the city. With CBD vacancy rates continuing to hover at around 1%, office transactions were limited to either small office queries or larger office spaces that were inevitably a churn in the existing stock. The SBD continued to corner demand for larger corporate office space thanks to its significantly higher stock and availability of such space. With good-quality office space fully occupied in the CBD, the scarcity coupled with the SBD maintaining its affordability in comparison to the CBD, office demand continued to be diverted to the SBD, particularly the Saket and Jasola Business Districts, both of which have considerable, good-quality vacant space and continue to be preferred by occupiers. The suburban micro-markets of Gurgaon and Noida were at the forefront of the leasing activity seen in Delhi NCR and continued to witness a strong and consistent level of demand for office space in 1Q11.

Overall Delhi NCR witnessed a net absorption of 1.63 million sq ft (151,755 sqm) in 1Q11.The CBD again witnessed negligible leasing activity in 1Q11, and the net absorption was nil. Vacancy remained stagnant at 1.1% in 1Q11. The SBD witnessed moderate leasing activity, with net absorption recorded at 90,000 sq ft (8,362 sqm). As a result, vacancy levels dropped to 14.6% in 1Q11, down from 16.0% in 4Q10. Overall, vacancy in Delhi’s CBD and SBD together fell to 10.1% in 1Q11 from the 11.4% recorded in 4Q10, with the SBD contributing all absorption recorded in the quarter.

Key transactions in the prime city recorded in 1Q11 included Science and Engineering Research Board, leasing 26,584 sq ft (2,469 sqm) at Vasant Square in the Vasant Kunj precinct in the SBD; and Ricoh, leasing 26,000 sq ft (2,415.5 sqm) at Salcon Aurum in Jasola Business District in the SBD.

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