CURRENT NEWS
The Hotel Groton is a full-service historic landmark hotel located in the small walking community in the Fingerlakes region of New York, surrounded by lakes, waterfalls and wineries in every direction and just 20 minutes from Ithaca (Tompkins Regional) Airport and 45 minutes from regional gateway Syracuse Airport. This centrally located full service boutique hotel will feature a vari
ety of onsite restaurant options and is nestled amidst contemporary art galleries, antique stores, and artisanal craft shoppes. HISTORY OF HOTEL GROTON
Hotel Groton is located in the Village of Groton, New York, which was first founded in 1795. William and Hephzibah Williams first settled the land parcel that Hotel Groton currently sits on in the late 18th century and early 19th century. The land title was then transferred to Azariah Dodge, who built a single-story tavern and occupied the land from 1818 to 1825. His tavern also served as a rural Native-American crossroads for trading purposes due to its favorable location on the corner of two main trading routes (these two routes are now two main roads in Tompkins County). After being exchanged through several different owners, in 1853 Harrison Bowker built what is now known as Hotel Groton. It was a great event in the history of the little Village of Groton! The three-story hotel was built entirely by hand, including the lumber, which were shaped using a handsaw. The hotel saw many different owners in the following decades, but its most notorious owner was Marion Augusta Goodyear, whose family founded the Goodyear Tire Company. Although her father initially bought the hotel, she took control of renovating it and managing the operations. “Gusty,” as she was called, was known to be an eccentric woman and was a very controversial public figure in her era as she was New York City’s first woman to divorce her husband. She retrofitted the hotel with what was at the time the most state-of-the-art rooms communication system, allowing guests to contact the front desk from their rooms. In more recent times, Hotel Groton has been in the Toolan family since 1974. It has certainly earned a reputation as a corner stone of Groton, literally and figuratively.
