Historic Inns & Hotels in Delaware

The regions

Where to stay, by region

Wilmington & the Brandywine Valley

Three of the inns we list are here. In downtown Wilmington, the Hotel du Pont opened in 1913 in an addition to the DuPont Building on Rodney Square, a contributing building in the Rodney Square Historic District, and has 217 rooms. At Market and Sixth streets, The Quoin fills the Security Trust and Safe Deposit Company’s 1885 brownstone bank in the Old Town Hall Commercial Historic District; it has been a 24-room hotel since 2022, with a restaurant, a rooftop bar and the Simmer Down cocktail bar. North of the city, The Inn at Montchanin Village has 28 rooms and suites in eleven restored buildings of the village that grew up for workers at the du Pont powder mills, and the old blacksmith shop, its forge intact, now houses Krazy Kat’s restaurant.

New Castle

The Terry House on Delaware Street is a brick, three-story townhouse of about 1860 in the late-Federal and Greek Revival style, with linked chimneys on each end wall and a two-tier wooden gallery on its rear wing. It is a contributing building in the New Castle Historic District, the colonial core of the town, which was designated a National Historic Landmark district in 1967. It has 7 rooms and now takes direct bookings as the Terryhouse Boutique Hotel.

Dover & Kent County

All three inns here were homes of Delaware governors. In Dover, the State Street Inn is a Tudor Revival house of about 1911 in the Victorian Dover Historic District, later the home of Simeon S. Pennewill, governor from 1909 to 1913; it has five rooms, all on the second floor. Milford, which straddles the Kent-Sussex line, has two: Causey Mansion, Levin Crapper’s 1763 Georgian house in the South Milford Historic District, home to governors Daniel Rogers and Peter F. Causey, with two rooms; and The Towers on NW Front Street, a Georgian house of about 1783 remodeled with towers, dormers and cut shingles, where John Lofland, the ‘Milford Bard’, and later William Burton, governor from 1859 to 1863, lived. The Towers has four rooms, and both Milford inns include breakfast.

Lewes & the Delaware Beaches

In Lewes, Hotel Rodney stands at Second and Market streets in the Lewes Historic District; built in 1926 and pictured as the Caesar Rodney Hotel in 1928, it has 20 rooms and four suites on two floors above the Rose & Crown restaurant and street-level shops. In Milton, Mansion Farm Inn is the David Robbins Homestead, a farmhouse of about 1850 with a Victorian-style addition, individually listed on the National Register in 2013; its three main-house rooms are the historic ones. We could not verify a historic stay in Rehoboth Beach, which has no National Register historic district or listed hotel.

Before you book

Planning your stay

Before you book

At Mansion Farm Inn, book the Robbins, Holly or Milton room in the house of about 1850; the Doggie and Coastal suites are in a barn whose build date we could not source, and they are the only rooms that take dogs. Age rules vary: Hotel Rodney requires guests to be 21 to reserve, The Quoin requires them to be 18 to check in, The Towers and Mansion Farm Inn take guests 14 and older, and the State Street Inn takes no children under 10. The Inn at Montchanin Village is not serving breakfast at present and is not wheelchair accessible, and the State Street Inn and The Towers have no elevator. Parking is free on site at Montchanin and the State Street Inn, valet at The Quoin ($45 a night) and the Hotel du Pont, and on the street or in two first-come spaces in an adjacent lot at Hotel Rodney. We could not confirm breakfast or parking at the Terry House, so ask when you book.

Ways in

Themes in Delaware

Wilmington and the Brandywine’s du Pont country

The DuPont Company began its Rodney Square headquarters in 1906 and opened the Hotel du Pont in a 1913 addition, with 150 rooms beside the DuPont Playhouse. Its designers used Italian marble, Caen stone, mosaics, terrazzo and oak paneling, and the National Register nomination quotes the claim that it cost more per room than any other hotel in the world. On Market Street, The Quoin fills a brownstone bank of 1885 attributed to Frank Furness, enlarged in 1908 and 1927, which Method Co. reopened as a hotel in 2022. North of the city, Éleuthère Irénée du Pont founded his powder mills on the Brandywine in 1802. The village that grew up for their workers was called DuPont Station after the railroad arrived in 1869 and was renamed Montchanin in 1889 for his ancestor Anne Alexandrine de Montchanin; Missy and Dan Lickle opened it as The Inn at Montchanin Village in 1996.

Colonial New Castle and the governors’ houses of Dover and Milford

New Castle’s historic center was designated a National Historic Landmark district in 1967 and re-documented for the National Register in 1984, when the Terry House, a townhouse of about 1860 with a cut sandstone water table and a deep corbelled brick cornice, was recorded as a contributing building. In central Delaware, three inns were homes of Delaware governors. Levin Crapper, a landowner and magistrate, built Causey Mansion in Milford in 1763 on what had been a 1,500-acre estate; Daniel Rogers owned it from 1797 to 1806, and Peter F. Causey remodeled it in the Greek Revival style, replacing the pitched roof with a third story, a low roof and a widow’s walk. The Towers, a Georgian house of about 1783, was given towers, dormers and cut-shingle patterns in what the National Register calls an outstanding example of a radical late-19th-century alteration; it was home to John Lofland, the ‘Milford Bard’, and later to William Burton. In Dover, the State Street Inn’s Tudor Revival house was later the home of Simeon S. Pennewill.

Lewes and the Delaware beaches

The hotel at Second and Market streets in Lewes went up in 1926 on the site of Caleb Rodney’s store and has gone by several names, among them the Zwaanendael Inn; restored in 1989, it is now Hotel Rodney. In Milton, David Robbins Sr., a Methodist lay preacher and acting judge, built a modest house on his Broadkill farm in 1810; the present farmhouse dates to about 1850, and from 1925 Charles G. Jones ran his holly-wreath business there, becoming known as the ‘Holly Wreath Man’ of Delaware’s holly industry. Will McQueen and David Stiber opened it as Mansion Farm Inn in 2017; it has an outdoor pool. Historic stays are scarce at the beaches themselves: Rehoboth Beach has no National Register historic district or listed hotel.

Road trip

Wilmington to Lewes, inn to inn

Wilmington

Start at the Hotel du Pont, the DuPont Company’s 1913 hotel on Rodney Square, or The Quoin, a 24-room hotel in an 1885 bank on Market Street. The Inn at Montchanin Village is north of the city in the Brandywine Valley.

New Castle

Stay at the Terry House, a brick townhouse of about 1860 on Delaware Street in the colonial core of New Castle, a National Historic Landmark district.

Milford

Stop at Causey Mansion, Levin Crapper’s 1763 house, or The Towers, a Georgian house of about 1783, both with breakfast included. In Dover, the State Street Inn has five rooms from $150 a night in November 2026.

Lewes

End at Hotel Rodney, built in 1926 at Second and Market streets in the Lewes Historic District, or at Mansion Farm Inn in Milton, a farmhouse of about 1850 with an outdoor pool.

Context

History and architecture

Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 7, 1787, and its oldest inn buildings are older still: Levin Crapper built the Georgian house that is now Causey Mansion in Milford in 1763, and The Towers, also in Milford, began as a Georgian house of about 1783. In 1802 Éleuthère Irénée du Pont founded his powder mills on the Brandywine, and the village that grew up for their workers, whose oldest building dates to 1799, is now The Inn at Montchanin Village. The 19th century added a farmhouse of about 1850 outside Milton, a brick townhouse of about 1860 in New Castle and the Security Trust and Safe Deposit Company’s 1885 bank on Wilmington’s Market Street. A Tudor Revival house of about 1911 went up in Dover, the DuPont Company opened the Hotel du Pont in its Rodney Square headquarters in 1913, and in 1926 the hotel that is now Hotel Rodney was built in Lewes. Most of these buildings took in guests much later: the Dover house became a B&B around 1984, Causey Mansion in 1986, Montchanin in 1996, Mansion Farm Inn in 2017 and The Quoin in 2022.