Our family stayed at the General Stanton Inn for several days the last week of July. Pros: It is an historic inn dating back to the 1600s made up of an original building and a separate house. In it's day it's proximity to Old Post Road must have made it a convenient and popular place to stay. The main house is historic with very old and charming common rooms along with "regular", updated guest rooms. If you look for it there is a small cemetary in the back corner of the property with ancient tombstones which we found very interesting. The side building where we stayed is from the 1970's and has two floors. We were in a large room that had another smaller room and a bathroom that fit all 5 of us. Weekly prices are discounted. KariLee, one of the owners, was very gracious and helpful while we were there.
Cons: the buildings are kind of worn down and older. When we arrived the electricity was not working in our room which means the a/c did not work. Being an inn there is no one in the office after 7:00 pm. Although I could/should have called KariLee to report the problem, I did not want to wake her, so we suffered through a hot night and were ready to pack and leave in the morning. However, when I did call her in the early morning she apologized, took care of the problem immediately and reminded me to call at any time of day/night as she lives on the property. She also gave me an additional discount for our troubles. So we stayed and we were comfortable after that. The a/c in the room was now working, which was great, but it made a lot of noise. The housekeeper was very nice but forgot to take out the garbage one day. KariLee took care of that immediately too. Note that our relatives who stayed in the main house did not have any of these problems. There is a flea market on the grounds of this inn on the weekends. We did not stay for it, but the canopies are up all the time. It's apparently a popular market; it does, however, make the grounds look kind of messy and uncared for. It's kind of sad that the cemetary is in the back corner behind the flea market and probably overlooked by most people.
The Inn also has a restaurant which is open for dinner Wed-Sunday I think. We did not eat there but one night we saw musicians setting up, and there seemed to be a local crowd gathering there.
Overall we are glad we stayed here. It has character even though it's kind of like staying at your relatives' run down country house. If you are looking for an upscale inn or a 24 hour hotel this is not the place for you. (I don't think those exist in Charlestown.) Compared to the tiny motels that dot the area and look really old, stuffy and worn down the General Stanton Inn seemed a much better option to us. It's right off the Post Road which makes it very convenient (although your GPS does not recognized the back entrance right off route 1 and will take you around to Old Post Road and the main entrance), but also noisy. It's very convenient, being just a couple of miles from the Charlestown Beach which was great, the "Fantastic Umbrella Factory" (not the exact name) - a group of hippie fun, cool stores built into the woods and a very popular attraction - and the Ninigret Wildlife Refuge. It's an easy 20 minute drive either way to Narragansett or Watch Hill, both of which are more upscale and more expensive areas to stay. If we go back we would stay in the original building in one of the oldest rooms.
The Inn was featured on Ghost Hunters and reportedly has spirits/ghosts there, something which we found intriguing and made it all the more of an interesting place to stay. By the way, the Inn and the grounds are for sale. We hope that whoever buys it puts some money into it and retains its historic character.