3 Best Hotels in Albany and Central New York, New York

Atop a hill off Lake Street, this old mansion has lake and mountain vistas and provides a country-manor-house experience. The resident dog and cats pay you visits in the spacious public rooms, which have wood details, paneling, and floors. In the dining room the windows open so wide that you feel like you're on a porch. Guest rooms are done in dusty pastels, whites, and florals.

With white moldings, delicate plasterwork, and a flying staircase, the interior of this 1812 brick inn is as Federal as its exterior. A stay here gets you access to all the facilities at the nearby Otesaga Resort—including discounted greens fees and meal prices—as well as to those at a sports center down the road.

Paper-bag inventor George West had this 23-room villa built in 1866 across from one of his mills, 7 mi west of Saratoga Springs. Today it serves as a luxurious B&B where special services may include being picked up at the train station by the inn's Bentley or having cocktails delivered to your room on a silver tray. Intricate moldings, mirrors, and mantels grace rooms with 14-foot ceilings and Victorian furnishings. Some rooms have four-poster beds; all have down comforters. In warm weather you may opt to have breakfast on the long porch overlooking the mansion's gardens and ponds.