Historic Inns in New Hampshire

The regions

Where to stay, by region

White Mountains

Bretton Woods has the Omni Mount Washington Resort, Joseph Stickney’s 1902 hotel and a National Historic Landmark, and on the resort grounds the Omni Bretton Arms Inn, an 1896 house restored as a country inn. In Whitefield, the Mountain View Grand grew from the Dodge family’s farmhouse into a hilltop resort, and in Littleton, Thayers Inn opened on Main Street in 1850. Jackson has two: The Wentworth, whose Wentworth Hall of 1883 anchors the Jackson Falls historic district, and the 1916 Eagle Mountain House on Carter Notch Road, with a 220-foot front porch. In North Conway, the 1926 Eastern Slope Inn stands at the north end of Main Street, and in Shelburne the Philbrooks began taking in tourists at Philbrook Farm Inn in 1861.

Seacoast

Portsmouth’s downtown is not a National Register district, but its three historic stays are all inside the city’s local Historic District: The Hotel Portsmouth, John and Lucy Sise’s 1881 mansion on Court Street; the Martin Hill Inn, two early-19th-century houses on Islington Street; and The Bow Hotel, an 1880s brewery warehouse on the Bow Street waterfront. Elsewhere on the Seacoast, Three Chimneys Inn stands at the Oyster River falls in the Durham Historic District, and The Exeter Inn, opened by Phillips Exeter Academy in 1932, is in Exeter’s Front Street Historic District.

Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee

The Hanover Inn, owned by Dartmouth College, faces the Dartmouth Green; its oldest surviving wing dates from 1924. In Enfield, the Enfield Shaker Museum rents 20 rooms year-round in the Great Stone Dwelling, which the Shakers built of granite in 1837 by Mascoma Lake. The Dowds’ Country Inn fills the c. 1790 Latham House in Lyme’s 80-acre Lyme Common Historic District, and in Goshen the Brook Road Inn began as an 1835 farmhouse on the back side of Mount Sunapee.

Lakes Region

Pickering House, on South Main Street in Wolfeboro near Lake Winnipesaukee, is an 1813 Federal house that reopened as a ten-room hotel in 2018 and was listed on the National Register in 2019. The Wakefield Inn, built about 1816 and an inn since 1890, stands in the Wakefield Village Historic District at Wakefield Corner.

Monadnock

Both of the region’s inns stand on a village Main Street inside a National Register historic district. The Inn at Hancock, built as Noah Wheeler’s tavern and traditionally dated 1789, says it has hosted guests without a break since then. In Jaffrey Center, The Monadnock Inn is a Greek Revival house enlarged with additions into the 1930s, where Benjamin and Sara Lawrence began taking in guests in the late 1800s.

Before you book

Planning your stay

Before you book

Several inns have grown beyond their historic buildings, so ask where your room is: some of The Hotel Portsmouth’s 32 rooms may be in its 1985 expansion, some of the Dowds’ Country Inn’s 20 rooms in the ell or barns, and most of the Brook Road Inn’s 12 rooms in its 1950s or 1960s ell, while the Eastern Slope Inn also rents suites, efficiencies and vacation rentals. The Mountain View Grand charges a $40 nightly resort fee, and the Enfield Shaker Museum adds New Hampshire’s 8.5% rooms tax to its posted rates. The upper floors at Three Chimneys Inn are stairs-only, and The Monadnock Inn does not currently serve breakfast.

Ways in

Themes in New Hampshire

The White Mountains grand hotels

Joseph Stickney opened the Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods in 1902, its granite and stucco masonry the work of about 250 Italian artisans; in July 1944 it hosted the Bretton Woods Conference, which created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In Whitefield, the Dodges opened their farmhouse to guests as the Mountain View House in 1866 and grew it to hold more than 200 guests by 1911–12; it closed in 1986, reopened in 2002 and is now the Mountain View Grand. In Jackson, the Eagle Mountain House opened with 75 guest rooms on July 4, 1916, and a 1929 addition doubled its size.

Portsmouth and the Seacoast

Portsmouth’s historic stays fill an 1881 mansion, early-19th-century houses and a brewery warehouse: The Hotel Portsmouth on Court Street, the Martin Hill Inn’s two houses on Islington Street, and The Bow Hotel, an 1880s Portsmouth Brewing Company warehouse with exposed brick and old timber beams. Elsewhere on the Seacoast, Three Chimneys Inn in Durham survived the 1694 raid that destroyed many nearby homes, and The Exeter Inn was built in 1932 to house visitors to Phillips Exeter Academy.

Village inns of the Monadnock and Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee regions

In the Monadnock region, The Inn at Hancock, a tavern given a mansard story in 1875, stands in the Hancock Village Historic District, and The Monadnock Inn in the Jaffrey Center Historic District, a village that grew around the Third New Hampshire Turnpike and by the late 19th century drew summer visitors to Mount Monadnock. In the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee region, The Dowds’ Country Inn fills the Latham House on the Lyme common, inside the Lyme Common Historic District, and the college-owned Hanover Inn faces the Dartmouth Green.

Shaker and farm stays

The Enfield Shaker Museum rents rooms on the third and fourth floors of the Great Stone Dwelling, whose upper floors keep much of their original Shaker cabinetwork. In Shelburne, Philbrook Farm Inn grew from a farmhouse of about 1834 and has 18 rooms and cottages. In Goshen, the Brook Road Inn began as an 1835 farmhouse with walls of 3-inch wooden planking and became a hunting lodge in the 1920s.

Road trip

Portsmouth to Bretton Woods, inn to inn

Portsmouth

Start in Portsmouth’s local Historic District at The Hotel Portsmouth, the Sises’ 1881 Court Street mansion, or The Bow Hotel, an 1880s brewery warehouse above the Seacoast Repertory Theatre.

Wolfeboro

Stay at Pickering House, an 1813 house on South Main Street near Lake Winnipesaukee, with ten rooms and breakfast included.

Jackson

Choose The Wentworth in Jackson village, where Wentworth Hall of 1883 stands with its Arden and Thorneycroft cottages, or the 1916 Eagle Mountain House on Carter Notch Road, with its 220-foot porch and 9-hole golf course.

Bretton Woods

End at the Omni Mount Washington Resort, where the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, or at the Omni Bretton Arms Inn on the same grounds.

Context

History and architecture

New Hampshire’s oldest inn buildings are colonial and Federal-era houses and taverns: the National Register gives traditional dates of 1649 for Three Chimneys Inn in Durham and 1789 for Noah Wheeler’s tavern in Hancock, and about 1790 for the Latham House in Lyme. In 1837 the Enfield Shakers built the Great Stone Dwelling of granite, the largest Shaker dwelling ever built. Mountain tourism followed: Thayer’s White Mountain Hotel opened in Littleton in 1850, ahead of the railroad’s arrival in 1852; the Philbrooks began taking in tourists in Shelburne in 1861; and the Dodges opened the Mountain View House in Whitefield in 1866. The resorts grew grander, from The Wentworth in Jackson, reorganized around 1880 on a British-style ‘cottage system’ with Wentworth Hall completed in 1883, to Joseph Stickney’s Mount Washington Hotel of 1902. Fire remade others: the Eagle Mountain House was rebuilt in 1916 and North Conway’s Hotel Randall in 1926, which Harvey Dow Gibson renamed the Eastern Slope Inn in 1937 and used to promote downhill skiing.