Where History Meets Hospitality

Spend the night at one of Door County’s long-standing inns, bed and breakfasts, hotels and motels. 

Fish Creek

The Thorp House Inn & Cottages has been in the lodging business since 1905, when the widow of a craftsman who died in a shipwreck began renting rooms in her newly completed home. Six cottages were added to the property in the 1930s, and in 1986, the inn was fully restored to focus on its historic nature. Today, the historic charm of the inn remains, but now with upgraded amenities and a homemade breakfast offered to guests each morning.

The White Gull Inn has a unique connection to Thorp House. The original owner of the White Gull Inn bought the land for the property from Asa Thorp, the founder of Fish Creek and uncle to Freeman Thorp, the craftsman who perished at sea. The White Gull Inn opened in 1896 and now offers 14 rooms across three historic buildings, as well as three cottages that can accommodate families. Don’t miss the inn's award-winning breakfast and traditional fish boil.

Harbor Guest House is also open year-round. It sits right on the water and even has its own pier, a favorite spot for guests to watch the sunset. Harbor Guest House is actually a historic carriage house, built in the early 1900s. Today, the half-timbered property is segmented into six rental apartments with one or two bedrooms, plus an additional apartment above the Alibi Marina office.

Baileys Harbor

The 1917 Baileys Harbor District #1 Schoolhouse sits on property once owned by mail-order bride Hedwig Peil, who also served as the school’s first janitor. Three subsequent generations of Peils received their education in the building, including the current owner. Today, Kristen Peil, along with her husband, Caleb Whitney, and their daughter, Ida (Hedwig’s great-great-granddaughter), operate the Baileys Harbor Schoolhouse Inn.

The Blacksmith Inn on the Shore has a family element to it as well; the property, built in 1905, was a replica of the owner’s family home back in Germany. The inn officially began renting rooms in the 1950s.

At Gordon Lodge, guests treat the hotel as their home away from home, often booking the same room every year, a year in advance. The property was originally a hunting lodge in the 1920s.

Sturgeon Bay

Embrace retro charm with modern comforts when you stay at the Holiday Music Motel, the first motel ever built in Door County. The classic 1952 stylings still exist, even down to the original metal furnishings and colorful bathroom tiles in each room. The motel today is a creative hub for inspiring original collaborative art and music — plus it’s the only motel in the world with an on-site radio station that exclusively broadcasts songs written within its own walls.

For Victorian-era romance, check into the White Lace Inn - Historic Country Inn / Bed and Breakfast. Innkeepers Dennis and Bonnie Statz bought the 1903 Queen Anne Victorian home in 1982, when it was in disrepair. They immediately set about restoring it to its previous glamour, and now have 18 rooms spanning four neighboring homes, connected by a "central" backyard, all furnished with antiques and period decorations.

The Inn at Cedar Crossing offers a decidedly more modern vibe, but with a rustic vintage undertone in each of its nine rooms. The boutique hotel sits in an 1884 building that once housed an apothecary, a doctor’s office, and a tailor.

Sister Bay

When the Liberty Lodge at Sister Bay opened in 1898, owners Abraham and Christina Carlson had a unique way of attracting visitors. They would go down to the docks when tourist steamboats were arriving. There, the couple would invite visitors to come stay at their lodge, which offered three meals every day, included in the room rate. The tactic worked, and the property has been lodging ever since. Liberty Lodge has been restored and refurbished, adding more modern amenities—but reducing the meals to one a day, a Nueske's European-style breakfast, an ode to the current owners.

Ephraim

Hillside Waterfront Hotel began with a single home, a four-room log cabin. As more bedrooms were added to the cabin, the owners, Martin and Maria Oleson, decided to rent them out. They officially established the hotel in 1890 with even more additions to the property.

Experience Eagle Harbor Inn's history throughout Door County. The 1890s Svalhus (cooling house), the property’s first building, was reconstructed with numbered logs at the Ephraim Historical Foundation in 1995. That year, the 1938 sleeping cottages from the inn were moved via a sailboat trailer for Peninsula Center housing. Today’s inn is a multi-building resort completed in 1996, with the first owners’ home renovated to house nine guest rooms.

Over at the Water Street Inn, the property has only had three owners since it opened in 1896. The building today is much the same as it was then — a large white lodge with an expansive lawn dotted with Adirondack chairs that overlooks Eagle Harbor.

Washington Island

At Hotel Washington & Studio, which was built in 1904, something unusual was found during recent renovations: a corked ceramic bottle of whiskey and a bullet hole in a water tower that was used prior to indoor plumbing. Those relics of the past may be gone now, but the hotel still has nearly all the original windows and floors within its eight second-floor guest rooms in the main building, plus a cottage in the backyard and a livery stable converted into lodging.

At the seasonal Sunset Resort, open from May to October, guests stay in one of 11 rooms in a late-1800s property; it sits on 40 waterfront acres and has been operated by five generations since it was opened in 1902.

Gibson’s West Harbor Resort is just as old — it officially opened in 1900, though the main lodge was in use as a boarding house for a lumber camp since the 1870s. Today, the main house has nine rooms, or you can stay in one of six cottages.