For the past 334 years, there has been a place for the community to gather behind the courthouse in Heathsville. Originally built and operated by generations of the Hughlett family, the historic establishment is one of the oldest surviving wood structures in the Northern Neck.
In the 1700s, taverns were a gathering place for like-minded individuals and they functioned as clearinghouses and test beds of revolutionary ideas. Rice’s Hotel/Hughlett’s Tavern (RHHT) fills the same role today.
Listed on both the Virginia and National Registers of Historic Places, the Tavern evolved from a simple three-room inn into a bustling hub of community activity. In 1866, the Rice family turned it into a fashionable hotel. It has been….
