The Guignard family has had a long and illustrious participation in the history of South Carolina and the area surrounding the Riverside Inn. Gabariel Guignard was born in France in 1708 and came with other French Huguenots to Charleston in about 1737. He and his only son, John Gabriel Guignard, were merchants and businessmen in Charleston. John Gabriel Guignard moved to Columbia in 1796 when the city was founded as the new state capital. He became the Surveyor General of the State of South Carolina and was responsible for laying out and surveying the basic four square miles of the new city.

John Gabriel Guignard and his only son, James Sanders Guignard, accumulated lands in Columbia, Lexington, Edgefield, and Orangeburg counties, and started a brick-making operation between West Columbia and Cayce on the west bank of the Congaree River, using alluvial clay deposits. After the Civil War, Gabriel Alexander Guignard (great-great-great-grandson of Gabriel Guignard) revived the brick works and in 1910, he built the present ìStill Hopesî house for his parents, brothers, and sisters. His father (the third John Gabriel Guignard) died in 1913, and his estate was divided between Gabriel Alexander Guignard and seven of his living brothers and sisters. One brother died in early childhood, and one brother, Sanders Richardson Guignard, had been given his share before his fatherís death, as he found it difficult to support his family in his meager pay as an Episcopal priest. The remaining eight heirs formed a real estate company, Guignard Estates, which developed local residential areas now known as ìthe Avenuesî in West Columbia and Cayce.

In 1952, the then-living children of the third John Gabriel Guignard gave to the stat of South Carolina the right of way for a highway leading to a new bridge over the Congaree River. This highway was named Knox Abbott Drive in honor of the mayor of Cayce. In 1954, 23 acres of the Guignard Estate property became the Parkland Plaza Shopping Center, just northwest of the Riverside Inn. At the same time, land was leased for the construction of the Tremont Inn, predecessor to the Riverside Inn.

Mindful of the need for public green spaces, in 1961 the remaining heirs of John Gabriel Guignard donated to the City of Cayce seven acres across Knox Abbott Drive from Parkland Plaza for use as a passive public park. Dr. Jane Bruce Guignard, who died in 1963 (the last surviving child of the third John Gabriel Guignard), bequeathed 39 acres surrounding the Still Hopes house to the Episcopal Church in South Carolina for a retirement home. She also specified that 14 acres wre to be left in their natural state in perpetuity. In keeping with the leadership shown by their forbearers, present descendants of the family in January 2002 donated 40 acres near the Inn along the west bank of the Congaree River to the City of Cayce to be used for nature trails as part of the Three Rivers Greenway System.

The Tremont Inn operated until 1994 when financial difficulties forced its closure. After extensive remodeling, the site reopened under new ownership in 1996 as the Riverside Inn.

The Riverside Inn offers a wide selection of rooms and reasonable rates, along with a full continental breakfast every day. The Inn is located conveniently close to state offices and businesses of downtown Columbia, The University of South Carolina, all sports locations, and the Columbia airport.