AIKEN, S.C. — The distinguished-looking man sitting near us in the paneled lobby of the Willcox Inn was speaking into his cellphone, an edge of concern in his voice.

"I hate to bother you, Doc. He's really OK when he's not around people."

Photos by BETSY CROSBY/Special (ENLARGE)
With its soft, sandy soil easy on hooves, Aiken, S.C., is wonderful country for equine types — and the people who love them.
see caption (ENLARGE)
Now a high-end bed-and-breakfast, the Willcox Inn offers all the comforts of home, and then some: plush feather beds, gas fireplaces, marble bathrooms with soaking tubs.
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IF YOU GO Getting there • Take I-20 east into South Carolina; right at Exit 18, then follow signs into Aiken. Where to stay • Willcox Inn, 100 Colleton Ave., Aiken, S.C. 29801; 803-648-1898 or 1-877-648-2200; http://www.thewillcox.com. Where to eat • Malia's, 120 Laurens St., 803-643-3086. Reservations recommended. • 10 Downing Street, 241 Laurens St., 803-642-9061. Reservations required. • Davor's Cafe, 227 the Alley, 803-641-1909. • Westside Bowery, 151 Bee Lane, 803-648-2900. • Track Kitchen, 420 Mead Ave. (across from Whitney Polo Field), 803-641-9628. Very casual. Playing golf • There are several good semiprivate golf clubs in the area, including the historic Aiken Golf Club, built in 1912, 803-649-6029, and Cedar Creek Golf Club, 903-648-4206. Mount Vintage Plantation & Golf Club in North Augusta, 803-278-5000, has had recent favorable press. • Palmetto Golf Club, 275 Berrie Road, is open to the public only during Masters week. For a starting time, contact club pro Tom Moore at 803-649-2951 after Jan. 2. For other golf options: http://www.aikencountysc.gov/tourism/golf. Equestrian events • For tickets to the Triple Crown events in March and early April, contact the following: for Aiken Horse Trials, 803-648-8955; for the Steeplechase, 803-648-9641; for Polo Round Robin, 803-648-6851. See also http://www.tbredcountry.org. • Polo matches 3 p.m. Sundays through June 12 on Whitney Field at Mead Avenue. $3 at the gate. Find out about other polo events at http://www.aikenpolo.net. • For a listing of other Aiken events: http://www.tbredcountry.org. Historic tours • Bus tours of Aiken leave Saturdays from the H.O. Weeks Center, 803-642-2731; or follow the self-guided tour map published by the Aiken Chamber of Commerce, 1-800-542- 4536, http://www.aikenchamber.net.

My husband and I were enjoying the inn's generous continental breakfast in a cozy alcove nearby and could not help but overhear. Even the best manners slip a little when something sounds like it might be really juicy.

The man got up, agitated, and strode out the double doors onto the white-columned front porch. As he passed out of earshot, we heard him say, "I'm going to try to ride him this afternoon." Minutes later, another hotel guest crossed the lobby in tight riding pants and leather boots.

Oh. This really is horse country.

We'd come to Aiken expecting something entirely different. We'd assumed this was just another quaint, but dog-eared, Southern town, with another quaint, but modest, bed-and-breakfast. We'd vaguely heard, but it hadn't really registered, that Aiken was horse country. We had come to play golf.

Aiken surprised us with its beauty, a thriving community of charming Victorian homes, gracious turn-of-the-century "cottages" and spacious horse farms where Kentucky Derby hopefuls are known to winter. And though the 22-room Willcox was modest in size, it far exceeded our expectations for accommodations and service — and at a reasonable price.

We were looking for an overnight getaway for my birthday, something within a three-hour drive of Atlanta. My husband, Bob, had another agenda, as well — playing golf at the historic (opened in 1892) Palmetto Golf Club, designed by Herbert Leeds and remodeled by Alister MacKenzie while he was building nearby Augusta National.

Palmetto is a private club, except during Masters week (in 2006 that's April 3-9), when nonmembers can snag one of the coveted starting times. Nonetheless, Bob finagled a tee time on a sunny March afternoon, and in a magnanimous gesture born of guilt encouraged me to book a treatment at the Willcox's day spa.

This Colonial Revival inn, built in 1898, was renovated in spring 2001 by the Garrett Hotel Group as a special-destination hostelry. Not long after, it joined sister properties Lake Placid Lodge and the Point at Upper Saranac Lake on the Relais & Chateaux registry. But popular as it was with the carriage trade (literally), traffic from the general public has been slow to build, hampered by the downturn in the travel industry following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Recently the inn relinquished its Relais & Chateaux designation with the closure of its restaurant. According to Philip Wood, president and chief operating officer of the Garrett Hotel Group, "Our sense of timing was off. There wasn't enough traffic to support the luxury full service we were providing."

What had been called simply the Willcox is now the Willcox Inn, a high-end, but independent, bed-and-breakfast catering to tourists drawn to Aiken for the horse season and golf. Many guests hail from the North.

Gone are the heart-stopping, all-inclusive nightly rates of $1,000 to $1,650 for two. Gone, as well, is the in-house restaurant, Seeger's at the Willcox, by Atlanta's renowned chef Guenter Seeger, though the owner is hoping to reopen in the future with a more casual offering in the tasteful dining room designed by Vern Yip.

Prices for hotel rooms now range from $175 to $400, and guests are encouraged to visit one of several lively restaurants in downtown Aiken, from the youthful tapas bar Davor's Cafe to the more sedate 10 Downing Street.

What remains of the "former" Willcox are the gracious rooms with a British upper crust flavor — plush four-poster feather beds, gas fireplaces, sleek marble bathrooms and 6-foot soaking tubs — suggesting, ever so tastefully, romance.

What also remains is a concierge staff dedicated to serving guests' every need, from obtaining steeplechase tickets, to making dinner reservations on a crowded Saturday night, to providing bicycles for a morning spin around Aiken's leafy boulevards and horse farms.

And perhaps the best offering is still available: the Willcox spa, with a full menu of services at small-town prices. So while Bob teed off, I indulged in my favorite spa treatment: reflexology, or paying someone to rub my feet.

Later that afternoon, we came to understand the wealth of history that surrounds Aiken as we toured Palmetto's small but elegant clubhouse, designed in 1902 by New York architect Stanford White. For Aiken's claim to fame is its history of wealth — justifying, perhaps, its one-time self-description as the Newport of the South.

From the 1890s to the 1930s, Aiken was a popular winter colony, hosting such prominent Northern families as the Cabots, Whitneys and Vanderbilts. They hired the best in the country to build their well-appointed clubhouses and "cottages," many of which remain. So do a few hotels, such as the Willcox, which once counted among its guests Elizabeth Arden, the Duke of Windsor and Franklin Roosevelt, whose private train car drew up to the back door, allowing FDR to be quietly ushered in.

Aiken's popularity waned as Florida was developed and the town was bypassed for more temperate winter resorts such as St. Augustine, Palm Beach and Miami.

A hundred years later, Aiken is still a winter-colony town on a quieter scale, says Willcox general manager Moriah Garrett, with horse owners drawn to the sandy soil that protects delicate hooves and covers the town's many horse trails and riding paths.

Though Aiken is attractive year-round, December offers holiday entertainment, such as carriage rides and home tours; fox-hunt season, the first two weeks of February, usually finds the Willcox Inn fully booked. March brings equestrian events such as the Horse Trials and the Steeplechase, followed in early April by the Polo Round Robin. With Augusta a 20-minute drive away, Masters week is the last big event of the season.

Saturday evening, as we enjoyed our meal at Malia's, a local favorite, surrounded by the loud chatter from what we assumed was "the horsy set," we felt just a little like we had stepped back in time. For a few hours we were part of this elite, but comfortably down-home, winter colony.