Hanover Inn Dartmouth

An Inn on the Green Since 1780

General Ebenezer Brewster converted his Hanover residence into a tavern in 1780, and by 1813 his son had expanded it into the Dartmouth Hotel, drawing visitors as prominent as President James Madison. Dartmouth College took over a declining property in 1903, rebuilt it as Hanover Inn Dartmouth, and has owned and run it ever since — a rare case of a college holding its own hotel rather than licensing the name to an outside operator, on a site that has never once stopped welcoming travelers in nearly two and a half centuries.

Why It Works

We picked the Hanover Inn for a guest list that reads like a syllabus in American history: Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan among the presidents, F. Scott Fitzgerald during the 1939 Winter Carnival, Ella Fitzgerald and Dr. Seuss among the rest. A $43 million renovation between 2011 and 2014 added PINE restaurant, the Hayward Ballroom and an 11,000-square-foot conference center without disturbing the Colonial Revival brick facade — the result is a AAA Four Diamond hotel that still looks, from the Green, exactly like it should have looked a century ago.

Why This Location

The inn sits directly on the Dartmouth Green at 2 East Wheelock Street, inside the campus rather than adjacent to it, with the college's oldest buildings, museums and Baker-Berry Library all a short walk away. Downtown Hanover's shops and restaurants line the same block, and Lebanon Municipal Airport is about 15 minutes out for guests flying in for a reunion or a game weekend, with Boston a little over two hours south by car.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium A room facing the Green is worth requesting at booking, since it puts the view that greeted Roosevelt and Eisenhower directly outside the window rather than a parking court behind the building. Term-time weekdays are quieter and easier to book than the weekends that surround a football game or a family visit.

• Vibe: Colonial Revival grandeur, college-owned

• Rooms: 108 rooms, AAA Four Diamond

• Best For: Parents' weekends, reunions, campus visitors and conferences

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: A continuous operating history on the same site since 1780

• Dining: PINE restaurant, on-site bar and room service

• Amenities: Hayward Ballroom, Minary Conference Center, fitness centre, valet parking

• Attractions: Dartmouth Green, Baker-Berry Library, downtown Hanover

From Ebenezer Brewster's Tavern to a AAA Four Diamond Hotel

The line from an 18th-century tavern to a four-diamond hotel is unbroken but not unchanged: an 1858 renovation poured in more than $40,000, a companion Wheelock Hotel opened in 1889, and a 1924 east wing added dozens of guestrooms. Each era added scale without replacing the original site, so that today's guest checks into a building whose address has hosted travelers since before the United States had a permanent capital.

PINE, the Ballroom, and the 2014 Renovation

The most recent chapter, a $43 million project completed in 2014, is also the most visible: PINE restaurant now anchors the ground floor, the Hayward Ballroom handles weddings and college events, and the Minary Conference Center's seven meeting rooms make the inn Dartmouth's default venue for conferences and symposia. It is the rare renovation that added capability without erasing the character that made the building worth saving in 1903, a balance many older hotels never quite manage.

Before You Book

Check-in is at 3 p.m. and check-out at 11 a.m.; pets are welcome, though the hotel does not list step-free accessibility, so guests with that need should confirm ahead. Rooms book out fastest around Dartmouth's reunion weekends, Homecoming and Commencement, so a visit tied to the academic calendar is worth planning months ahead rather than weeks.