A fabulous hotel can be more than a buzzy restaurant and well-designed rooms. It can be a nod to history. Each of these historic hotels in Wisconsin is a grand dame – posh enough that you’ll want to stay more than one night.
The American Club
419 HIGHLAND DR., KOHLER
Built: 1918
Rooms: 241
Rates: $454+
Fun fact: The club gave its first occupants lessons in English language and American citizenship.
Built as housing for The Kohler Co.’s mostly immigrant employees, these are far from dorm-style rooms. Wake up among cream-and-burgundy decor (and Kohler showers and tubs, of course) and slip down to the greenhouse imported from Lancashire, England, for a latte. Venture to the Kohler Company Museum, where machinery dates to 1873. The Horse & Plow bar and grill, the workers’ former taproom and bowling alley, celebrated 100 years in 2024.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Washington House Inn
W62N573 WASHINGTON AVE., CEDARBURG
Built: 1886
Rooms: 29
Rates: $161+
Fun fact: The architect also designed Milwaukee’s first leather trunk.
Little has changed at this inn, and that’s a good thing. The wooden structure built in 1846 was replaced with this Cream City brick building in 1886, then expanded into three adjacent buildings. Each stone-walled guest room is an intimate sanctuary with fireplaces, steam baths and whirlpool tubs – and you don’t even need to leave your room, as breakfast is delivered to your door.
Hotel Northland
304 N. ADAMS ST., GREEN BAY
Built: 1924
Rooms: 160
Rates: $193+
Fun fact: It’s the former headquarters of the Green Bay Packers.
At the Tudor Revival-style hotel’s reception desk, the clock’s set to “Lombardi time” (15 minutes ahead), an ode to the famously punctual Packers coach. A $35 million makeover in 2019 gave the building a glam glow-up. In 1924, the year it was built, it was Wisconsin’s largest hotel. The lobby is like a scene out of The Great Gatsby, and the adjacent Walnut Room serves daily breakfast.
The Edgewater
1001 WISCONSIN PL., MADISON
Built: 1948
Rooms: 202
Rates: $199+
Fun fact: When Elvis stayed here, he nabbed a clothes hanger as a souvenir. It’s now on display at Graceland.
With its own ice-skating rink and spa, this Art Moderne hotel hugging Lake Mendota is so modernized that guests are often shocked The Langdon Building (one of two towers of rooms) dates to 1948. It was designed by Danish-American architect Lawrence Monberg. To bite into a piece of the hotel’s history, order an Augie Burger at Augie’s Tavern, named for the hotel’s first owner, Augie Faulkner.
Hotel Retlaw
1 N. MAIN ST., FOND DU LAC
Built: 1923
Rooms: 121
Rates: $119+
Fun fact: In 1937, Eleanor Roosevelt hosted a press conference in her suite.
In 1923, Walter Schroeder developed this red-brick, Neoclassical hotel; the name is Walter spelled backward. In Milwaukee, Schroeder also owned an eponymous hotel (now Hilton Milwaukee City Center) and The Astor Hotel. Hotel Retlaw’s $30 million renovation in 2019 amped up the Roaring ’20s glam, with touches like the lobby’s chandeliers and a black-and-white scheme that includes porcelain tile floors. At Table One, the meatloaf is legendary – and hasn’t left the menu in 101 years.
