$100–150

Run by an affable husband-and-wife team and their cats, Candlewick Inn (775 Main St., Warren, 401/247-2425, www.candlewickinn.net, $90–140) is a pretty and relaxed spot to spend a few nights. Family heirlooms, antiques, and handmade quilts fill the four guest rooms; gardens surround the property, and the complimentary, delicious breakfast is of epic proportions.

Small touches make the William Grant Inn (154 High St., Bristol, 401/253-4222, www.wmgrantinn.com, $140–160), located a block from Bristol’s main street, a first-rate place to stay. The bed-and-breakfast’s innkeepers fill guest rooms with fresh-cut flowers and bake cookies in the afternoons. Rooms are decorated with antiques and oriental art; a piano and back porch are also available for use of guests.

$150–250

You can’t get closer to the water than the Bristol Harbor Inn (259 Thames St., Bristol, 401/254-1444, www.bristolharborinn.com, $155–255), a former bank and rum distillery renovated into a boutique hotel right on the harbor. Rooms are simply decorated with understated nautical decor—but who needs wallpaper when you have the view of the harbor outside your window? Continental breakfast is served in the room where rum casks were once filled; wireless Internet is available throughout the hotel.

You can imagine yourself as a manor lord at the Governor Bradford House (250 Metacom Ave./Rte. 136, Bristol, 401/254-9300, www.mounthopefarm.com, $175–250). Situated on Mount Hope Farm, a 200-acre preserve of fields, ponds, and woodlands, the house was once owned by one of the first governors of Rhode Island and later by Rudolph Haffenreffer of Narragansett beer fame. And, of course, Washington stayed here, when he was an old man in 1793. Rooms are decorated with a designers’ eye, with canary or lime-green walls, grand four-poster beds, and some with working fireplaces.

© Michael Blanding and Alexandra Hall from Moon New England, 2nd Edition