The Windsor Hotel is the architectural centerpiece of downtown Americus — a five-story Queen Anne pile built in 1892 that looks improbable and magnificent in equal measure for a small Georgia city. Swedish-born architect Gottfried Leonard Norrman designed it with a dramatic three-story atrium, towers, and wraparound verandas, when Americus was a prosperous cotton-trading hub with ambitions to rival Atlanta.
The hotel closed in the early 1970s and sat largely idle before a careful restoration brought it back to life. Today it operates as the Windsor Hotel (part of the Ascend Hotel Collection) at 125 West Lamar Street, with 53 guest rooms, a restaurant, and a bar. Even if you're not staying here, stop in for a drink and walk through the atrium — the interior is worth seeing, and the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Americus Historic District.