In 1895 Nelson Mead built a cottage with a view of Lake Waramaug on 1000 acres which stretched from June Road to Tanner Hill. In 1901 the house was remodeled and a porch added. By 1903 Anna Mead Kellogg was the landowner and she built six cottages behind the main house and took in paying guests. Her daughter, Jane Lowe, opened the Boulders in 1951, The Boulders Inn on Lake Waramaug closed in early 2012.
Originally the home of Henry Stone, Frank LaGrotta, and his wife, Rose, purchased the farm on Rabbit Hill Rd. in 1913. Through additional land purchases and the acquisition of a Yale farm lease, the property swelled to 400 acres by the time the LaGrotta Inn opened in 1936. Equipped with a 42 x 96 ft spring-fed swimming pool which Frank himself dug by hand, the inn welcomed guests until 1966.
The Martha Washington Tea Room and Boarding House on the north shore of Lake Waramaug was built in 1870 by John Buher, a Swiss immigrant. A charming example of Folk Victorian architecture with a spindlework porch and under eave bracketing, the Martha Washington was open to summer visitors from 1920 to 1930. It was the arrival of the railroad which made this building style possible by supplying local lumber yards with abundant supplies of pre-cut detailing from distant mills.
The next in our series of Inns and Taverns of Warren is the Sachem Farmhouse B&B, a stunning example of Victorian-era Italianate architecture. Italianate architecture was popular between 1850 and 1890 and is distinguished by a rectangular shape, flat or hipped roof, molded window caps and central roof-line cupolas. E. R. Beeman whose family owned 2000 acres around Lake Waramaug ran the summer boarding house from 1869 until 1895. In 1895 George C. Hopkins purchased the property and called it the Sachem Inn. It closed in 1960, but re-opened in 2007.