A seventeen-room hilltop inn on Foss Mountain above Eaton Center, built in 1916 as the summer home of the Pulitzer-winning war correspondent Frank H. Simonds, an inn since 1948, with the Presidential Range view through the dining-room windows and no televisions in the guest rooms.
"A seventeen-room hilltop inn built in 1916 by a Pulitzer-winning war correspondent, there are no televisions in the rooms because there is nothing to watch except the Presidentials out the window."
Snowvillage Inn occupies a 1916 summer residence built on the south slope of Foss Mountain in Eaton Center, the lakes-region hamlet of three hundred year-round residents fifteen minutes south of Conway and forty-five minutes from Mount Washington. The house was built by Frank H. Simonds, the New York Tribune war correspondent who won the 1916 Pulitzer Prize for his First World War despatches and later authored the multi-volume History of the World War. Simonds chose Foss Mountain for its view: the wraparound porch and the upper-floor guest rooms in the original 1916 building look due west across the Conway intervale to the Presidential Range and the Carter-Moriah ridge.
The Simonds family sold the property in 1948 to Greta and Maxx Pluss, who converted it from summer residence to year-round inn, the Snowvillage name dates from that 1948 conversion. The property has run as a country inn continuously since (sixty-eight years and seven ownerships); the current proprietors took over in 2015 and ran a phased restoration of the 1916 main building and the two outbuildings (the Chimney House and the Carriage House) over the following three years.
Seventeen rooms across the three buildings: the 1916 Main Inn (five rooms, the original mahogany trim, the panelled common rooms, the wraparound porch with the Presidentials view), the Chimney House (four queen rooms, each with a gas fireplace, a sitting area, a coffee station, and private bath), and the Carriage House (eight rooms in a renovated nineteenth-century barn). No television in any guest room is a deliberate property choice; the common rooms in the Main Inn have a single television in the library and the bar runs the New England game schedule.
The dining programme is the inn's anchor. Max's Restaurant on the ground floor of the 1916 building runs a three-course prix-fixe Tuesday through Saturday with the Presidentials view through the dining-room windows; the menu rotates to the season and the New Hampshire producers (Stillman's lamb, Vermont creamery cheese, the Black Trumpet mushroom forager). The cocktail programme at Max's is on the short list of credible bar programmes in the Mount Washington Valley. The Foss Mountain summit, the inn's wood-fired Finnish-style sauna, the cross-country trail network out the back of the property, and the absence of light pollution at the hilltop position (Eaton has dark-sky-friendly municipal lighting) round out the year-round programme. The inn is dog-friendly in three Carriage House rooms.
Snowvillage is the solo-retreat inn of the Mount Washington Valley. The 1916 Main Inn single-occupancy room category at the back of the building (the smallest room, the lowest rate, the panelled common room and library at the door) is the writer's-retreat booking. No television in the room, dark-sky position at the hilltop, the wood-fired Finnish sauna in the evening, the three-course dinner at Max's at a single table, the Foss Mountain summit hike out the back door at sunrise, the inn understands the cadence.
For the country-inn honeymoon on a long-weekend cadence, the Chimney House Queen with the gas fireplace and the Foss-Mountain aspect is the appropriate booking. The Presidentials view from the dining-room window, the dinner programme at Max's, the wood-fired sauna at night, and the absence of event traffic (Snowvillage does not host weddings) make the long-weekend programme correctly private.
Snowvillage runs a quiet but serious wellness pattern. The wood-fired Finnish sauna, the Foss Mountain summit hike (two-mile loop, 600 vertical feet, the summit cleared for the panoramic view), the cross-country trail network in winter, the absence of television and light pollution, and the kitchen's New Hampshire-producer programme make the four-night reset stay legitimate. The inn does not run a formal yoga or meditation programme but the property arrangement makes the self-directed reset easy.
136 Stewart Road
Eaton, NH 03832
United States
Foss Mountain · Eaton Center; Mount Washington Valley; Portland International Jetport 125 minutes; Manchester-Boston Regional 110 minutes; Boston Logan 175 minutes
17 rooms across 1916 Main Inn, Chimney House, and Carriage House
Main Inn Standard Room from $199/night
Main Inn View Room (Presidentials aspect) from $259/night
Chimney House Queen (gas fireplace) from $279/night
Carriage House Family Room from $329/night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
1916 Frank H. Simonds residence; inn since 1948; phased 2015-2018 restoration under current ownership; dog-friendly in three Carriage House rooms
No televisions in guest rooms (deliberate)
Wood-fired Finnish-style sauna
Max's Restaurant (three-course prix-fixe, Tuesday-Saturday)
Wraparound porch with Presidential Range view
Foss Mountain summit hike from property (2 miles, 600 feet)
Cross-country trail network
Dark-sky position (Eaton is dark-sky-friendly)
Free Wi-Fi (property-wide)
From $199 / night, full New England breakfast included. The Chimney House Queens and the Main Inn View Rooms book two to three months ahead for the foliage window (late September to mid-October) and the President's Day winter window. The inn's Tuesday-through-Thursday cadence year-round is the value pick; Max's runs a smaller menu Monday and skips the dinner service Sunday.
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