Augusta — In time for the Masters, another Augusta landmark is all dressed up, waiting for its annual entourage of golfing guests.

The Partridge Inn, a fixture in the city's historic Summerville neighborhood since the 1870s, late last year completed a $17 million makeover.

Randall Perry Photography (ENLARGE)

The Partridge Inn has welcomed famous guests, including Rockefellers and President Warren G. Harding.

see caption (ENLARGE)

The Partridge Inn in the city's historic Summerville neighborhood, completed a $17 million makeover late last year.

see caption (ENLARGE)

Sunday brunch and New Southern and American cuisine at dinner are highlights of the inn's restaurant.

Red Wolf Inc. (ENLARGE)

An airy guest room opens to a balcony with a sunny view. The inn's 145 rooms have been updated with complimentary high-speed Internet access, new bathroom fixtures and deluxe spa products.

As befitting a lady of her years, the Partridge's re-do was designed to subtly enhance her beauty and classic lines. The new owner, West Paces Hotel Group, headed by former Ritz-Carlton Hotels' president, Horst Schulze, has updated the color scheme inside and out. A sunny yellow shade, complementing the inn's magnolias and landscaping, has replaced the former salmon pink hue, grown dingy and faded over the years.

Echoing the plush grounds of the neighboring Augusta National Course, home of the Masters, interiors have been refreshed in earthy sage, cream, forest brown and warm rust tones.

The inn's 145 guest rooms, including 54 suites, have been refurnished and equipped with complimentary high-speed Internet access, new bathroom fixtures and deluxe spa products, coffeemakers, hairdryers, triple-sheeted beds and overstuffed chairs and sofas.

The four-guest room Penthouse Suite has a full modern kitchen, wet bars and views of the city, below "the Hill," as the Summerville neighborhood is known.

Like a genteel old Southern home, a quarter-mile of open verandas and galleries are the Partridge's signature. Guests at the Veranda Grill, the hotel's main restaurant and bar, can enjoy buffet breakfast and lunch, popular Sunday brunch and dinnertime New Southern and American cuisine and live music with fresh air and unobstructed views of the magnolia trees.

The spirit of a former guest named Emily reputedly hangs around the top of a closed-off stairway at the restaurant's entrance.

An unfaithful suitor broke her heart, but she's a friendly ghost, says a hotel staffer. Perhaps Emily's longing for love inspires the Veranda's raft of marriage proposals — four on Valentine's Day.

On the renovations' downside, the Bamboo Room martini bar, jazz room and dining room, renowned for chef Phillipe Chin's French/Asian fusion cuisine, has closed. Chin is opening a French restaurant across the Savannah River in Aiken, S.C., and his former digs will probably become a private function room.

The first-floor lobby has been doubled, with seating arrangements, a small business center and big windows letting in natural light and views of Walton Way. A fitness center, a ballroom, five meeting rooms and an outdoor pool and landscaped courtyard are adjacent to the lobby.

The hotel was originally a two-story residence of the Walton family, one of whose members (George Walton) was one of Georgia's three Declaration of Independence signers. It was purchased in the late 1800s by New York hotel man Morris Partridge, who expanded it to its present size in 1929. A New York contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Partridge's distinguishing twin towers and verandas.

Long history of famous guests

"You don't typically find hotels of this caliber still functioning today," says general manager Jeff Brower. "It has a tremendous history of famous guests. Over the years, it has hosted Rockefellers and other wealthy Northern winter snowbirds, who came down for golf, fox hunting and other sports. The Masters Tournament is located here largely because of Augusta's prominence as a wintering place.

"The heyday was from the early 1900s to 1940. They came with trunks and servants and stayed the whole season," Brower says. "When the railroad pushed onto into Florida, most of the Northerners went with it, to Palm Beach and Miami. But the reputation of Augusta and the Partridge as a place to spend the winter was already made."

In 1921, President-elect Warren G. Harding held one of his round-robin pre-inaugural dinners in the hotel's ballroom. The pres and his party reputedly dined on fried chicken, baked 'possum and sweet potatoes and other regional specialties.

Fried chicken is still on the luncheon menu, but executive chef Bradley Czajika's New Southern evening fare dispenses with the 'possum. It features Charleston-style she-crab bisque, blackened shrimp and scallops over creamy goat cheese grits, sweet potato-crusted trout and grilled beef and seafood.

While you're here

Downtown Augusta's attractions are about 10 minutes down Walton Way. In the 1980s, a 19th-century flood containment levee on the Savannah River was developed into Riverwalk, a 10-block promenade and public park with an art museum and science museum at either end. The Morris Museum of Art (One 10th St., 706-724-7501, www.themorris.org) exhibits works by Augusta native Jasper Johns, 19th-century portraitist Thomas Sully, 20th-century romantic Thomas Hart Benton and other Southern artists. Open Tuesdays through Sundays; adults $5, age 65 and over and students and military with ID, $3.

The National Science Center's Fort Discovery (One 7th St., 706-821-0200, www.national sciencecenter.org) has more than 250 interactive exhibits indoors and the Gravity Bike and other fun stuff outdoors on the Riverwalk. Open daily; adults $8, ages 4-17 and military and seniors, $6.

Play some golf?

Not in your dreams will you get into the sacred Augusta National grounds during Masters week, but more than a dozen l8-hole courses, some designed by the game's top architects, invite you to play year-round. The Augusta Convention & Visitors Bureau can put you on the right course.