“Southern Living” magazine announced Friday the realization of Southern Living Hotel Collection. A total of 15 upscale, independent hotels are charter members of the collection and the offices for the hotel collection will be located in Senoia.
Southern Living publisher Greg Schumann said the publication hopes to capitalize on its relationship with the magazine’s subscribers who both read the magazine and live the lifestyle it portrays.
“You take that dynamic and marry it with the fact that three-fourths of (readers) say they get travel information from Southern Living they can’t get anywhere else,” Schumann said.
Senoia Enterprises President Scott Tigchelaar the decision by Southern Living to locate the hotel collection’s headquarters in Senoia came because Southern Living loves the city and has a history with it. That history includes the magazine’s two recent Idea House properties, both of which were developed by Senoia Enterprises and located on the Gin Property in Senoia. Both were the magazine’s most successful Idea House endeavors.
“It was their choice to have their offices here,” Tigchelaar said.
Tigchelaar said the Southern Living Hotel Collection offices will be located on the top floor of the 42 Main Street building in downtown Senoia.
Southern Living is the largest lifestyle brand in the South and it is the only publication that is growing in subscribers, Tigchelaar said of the magazine with 16 million monthly readers.
Tigchelaar said developing a collection of unique, independent hotels provides Southern Living with a platform at destination properties to provide venues for interactive programs that center on the magazine’s topic areas – food, travel, home and garden.
Tigchelaar said the Southern Living Hotel Collection will be working closely with the magazine’s headquarters in Birmingham.
“This is a big win for Georgia to have a formal Southern Living presence here,” said Tigchelaar.
The 15 charter members include the Inn at Serenbe in Chattahoochee Hills; Barnsley Gardens Resort in Adairsville; Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Mo.; Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tenn.; The Grove Park Inn in Asheville; The Hermitage Hotel in Nashville; the Inn at Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton, S.C.; John Rutledge House Inn in Charleston; Pursell Farms in Sylacauga, Ala.; Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club in Durham; Wentworth Mansion in Charleston; Whitestone Country Inn in Kingston, Tenn.; and Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans.