Benn Conger Inn

A Senator's Mansion, and a Bootlegger's Legend

Built in 1921 on a quiet street in the village of Groton, the Benn Conger Inn began life as the private home of a man who had already made his name twice over — once in typewriters, once in the state senate. Benn Conger died inside these walls the following year, and the house has carried his name, and a good deal of local folklore, ever since. The story that travels fastest in Groton is the Prohibition one: the mansion is said to have sheltered Dutch Schultz, the bootlegger and numbers racketeer, during his years running liquor through upstate New York. Nobody produces a receipt for that, but it is the kind of rumor a hundred-year-old house earns honestly.

Why It Works

We chose the Conger house because it reads as a genuine historical object rather than a themed one: a Colonial Revival mansion built for a man whose two careers, typewriters and the New York State Senate, both left real marks on the region. The Victorian cottage next door, renovated alongside the main house in 2022, gives the inn a second register, slightly less formal and better suited to a couple who want a cottage of their own rather than a corridor. Nine rooms in total keeps the whole property at a scale where the house, not a reception desk, still sets the tone.

Why This Location

Groton is a village, not a destination in the usual sense, and that is the point: it sits roughly fifteen minutes from Ithaca and under forty minutes from Syracuse, close enough to both for a dinner out or an afternoon at a museum, far enough that the inn's own quiet is never in question. The Finger Lakes wine trail runs within easy reach of West Cortland Street, and the surrounding countryside, rolling, agricultural, dotted with small lakes, is built for slow driving and long walks rather than sightseeing at pace.

Fast Facts

• Price: €€

• Vibe: historic, literary, quietly theatrical

• Chambres: 9, split between the main house and a separate Victorian cottage

• Best For: history-minded couples, small weddings and corporate retreats, Finger Lakes wine-trail stays

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the Dutch Schultz story, told without a trace of embarrassment by a village that clearly enjoys it

• Amenities: fully renovated guest rooms (2022), a separate Victorian cottage with its own character, Colonial Revival architecture throughout the main house

• Attractions: Ithaca (15 minutes), Syracuse (under 40 minutes), the Finger Lakes wine trail, hiking and biking trails, Cayuga Lake wineries

The Rooms and the Cottage

The nine rooms split between two buildings with distinct characters. Those in the main house sit inside the Colonial Revival shell Conger built in 1921: tall windows, formal proportions, the sense of a house designed to receive guests rather than merely sleep them. The Victorian cottage next door, brought into the 2022 renovation alongside the main house, trades a little of that formality for intimacy. It reads as the better choice for a couple who want a door of their own rather than a shared hallway.

Prohibition, Politics, and a Typewriter Fortune

Benn Conger's own story is stranger than the house's decor lets on. He ran the Standard Typewriter Company, which became Corona in 1914 and, after his death, merged into what the world would know as Smith Corona. In the New York State Senate, he was the man who accused a fellow senator of taking a bribe in 1901, a charge that stuck, cost the other man his seat, and cost Conger his own political career soon after, by his own choice. He died in this house in 1922. What came next, if the stories are true, is one of the few hotel legends in the Finger Lakes that starts with a senator and ends with a bootlegger.

Before You Book

The inn leans toward business stays, small corporate retreats, and wedding receptions as much as toward overnight leisure guests, so a quiet weekend here often shares the grounds with an event. It rewards travelers who already have a reason to be in the Finger Lakes, wine, a wedding, an Ithaca errand, rather than those searching for a stand-alone resort weekend. With nine rooms in total, the inn fills quickly for a wedding weekend, so a group booking is worth planning well ahead.