LENOX — Convenient for downtown dining and shopping. No minimum multi-night required stay, even in high season.
Those are among the assets touted by the new management team at the recently renovated, year-round Garden Gables Inn on Main Street in the heart of the historic village’s downtown business district.
After extensive interior renovations, the historic Garden Gables Inn is set to reopen for guests as a modern boutique hotel under its new ownership, Boston-based Sullivan Capital.
The project approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals in February 2025 cost just shy of $1.4 million, said Hospitality Director Marley Chase during a tour of the upscale boutique inn.
Part of the main building dates back to 1780, making it among the oldest surviving structures in Lenox.
It was built as a private residence known as the Eliza Williams House, and later as the Butternut Cottage for the butternut trees on its scenic property. It was converted to a small hotel in 1951, according to lenoxhistory.org.
Hotel Manager Yvonne Walton outside the Garden Gables Inn in Lenox.
After extensive interior renovations, the historic Garden Gables Inn is set to reopen for guests as a modern boutique hotel under its new ownership, Boston-based Sullivan Capital.
After extensive interior renovations, the historic Garden Gables Inn is set to reopen for guests as a modern boutique hotel under its new ownership, Boston-based Sullivan Capital. According to Marley Chase, the company’s hospitality director, part of the sensory boutique experience is smell, which is achieved by bespoke Garden Gables scent diffusers around the property.
After decades of ownership by the Vittori family, the property was purchased in November 2024 for $2,475,000 by Sullivan Capital LLC, a development company based in Salem.
In keeping with contemporary automated check-in practices at some boutique inns, registered guests access the main building and their rooms through an access code texted to their phones.
But daytime manager Yvonne Walton, former general manager at the former Seven Hills resort on Plunkett Street adjacent to The Mount, is on-site weekdays from 9 to 5. Seven Hills is closed as its parent company based in Bend, Ore., heads toward a bankruptcy filing.
After extensive interior renovations, the historic Garden Gables Inn is set to reopen for guests as a modern boutique hotel under its new ownership, Boston-based Sullivan Capital.
At the Garden Gables, there’s a text-message concierge service with area online staff available for guests with questions, she explained. During peak season, there also will be a weekend manager on hand.
Chase, a Pittsfield native who now lives in Reading, north of Boston, also manages Sullivan Capital properties in Salem and Gloucester on Cape Ann but returns to Lenox frequently to keep tabs on Garden Gable.
She pointed out that limiting front-door access into the main building to coded pre-registered guests provides an enhanced sense of security.
“In this day and age, if the doors are open anyone can come into the hotel lobby,” said Chase. “Our system provides custom personalization of hospitality. Whoever you see in the building are guests. We’re very particular about access and our guests know that before they get here.”
After extensive interior renovations, the historic Garden Gables Inn is set to reopen for guests as a modern boutique hotel under its new ownership, Boston-based Sullivan Capital.
The renovations in the main inn were designed to move the property to the “luxury boutique style of hospitality,” said Chase. “The extremely popular style is all about the senses, catering to guests looking for experiences, customized and something different.”
The inn has custom scented diffusers, Italian linens and visual elements that are different from chain hotels, according to Chase.
The inn has 16 pre-existing suites and rooms currently — 10 in the main building, two in a side building and four in cottages, though the ZBA had approved an expansion for 10 additional rooms. Some of the main-floor rooms can be used as private event spaces.
Marley Chase, the hospitality director for Sullivan Capital, talks about the vision for the historic Garden Gables Inn in Lenox, the company’s newest hotel acquisition.
“That’s going to be a work in progress,” Chase noted. The approval, including an 8-room expansion of the existing townhouse-type cottages, enabled the owners to plan ahead, she explained.
Reservations were taken as of March 10, and the first guests are arriving this week. Check-in is at 3 p.m. and checkout, also via text messaging, is 11 a.m.
Rates this month for a classic queen, one of the smaller rooms, range from $135 to $215 nightly, rising to a range of $899 to $1,038 nightly over the July 4 holiday weekend. The inn is not pet-friendly.
After extensive interior renovations, the historic Garden Gables Inn is set to reopen for guests as a modern boutique hotel under its new ownership, Boston-based Sullivan Capital.
The inn is pitched to guests of all ages, “no boundary to whom we would host,” Chase commented. “We’re one of the only hotels you can book for one night, it’s an eye-opening flexibility.” In the past, three- or even four-night required stays were commonplace.
“Ever since Covid, a lot of people have been taking advantage of one day to just get out of town,” Walton, the daytime manager, observed. Flexible work schedules, remote work and sensitivity to weather encourage last-minute bookings.
While some may think of the Garden Gables as old-fashioned, that’s no longer the case. “It has a personality of its own,” Chase said.
