One Night in Kohler’s Old Company Town, Now a Luxury Resort and Spa

Welcome to One Night In, a series about staying in the most unparalleled places available to rest your head.

In the early 1900s, Walter J. Kohler, president (and son of the founder) of the namesake manufacturing company, commissioned the Olmsted Brothers—a firm established by the sons of prolific landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted—with developing a planned community for Kohler Co. in Wisconsin’s Sheboygan County. One of the earliest resulting buildings in the village was a dormitory for single, male European immigrants who staffed the factory, complete with a pub, barbershop, and bowling alley, educational spaces where inhabitants were offered English lessons, plus a social calendar that encouraged community get-togethers over picnics, concerts, and sporting events.

In 1981, the Kohler family turned the former workers’ quarters into a hotel called The American Club, now part of a larger vacation destination with multiple lodging options, golf courses, restaurants, and a five-star spa. True to Kohler’s plumbing legacy, the spa is known for hydrotherapy and offers treatments that showcase the company’s latest designs and products. For design enthusiasts, visiting the spa can check off two boxes: self-care and shopping for your next home renovation. This particularly interesting marriage of offerings was perfect for my friend Alexis, a spa aficionado who recently moved to Chicago—and, I should mention, is a biomedical engineer with a PhD from Johns Hopkins, who specializes in skin and immunity. In early January, she asked if I was free to check out the facility just two-and-a-half hours north of her new home. I reached out to Kohler Waters Spa about whether they’d host a journalist visit, and they invited us for a one-night stay with two complimentary hydrotherapy treatments of our choice. Needless to say, I was going to be in good hands.

Friday

1:30 pm: We exit I-43 and drive along the semifrozen Sheboygan River, floating chunks of ice clinging to the riverbed. We pull into the Blackwolf Run Restaurant parking lot and step out, immediately catching the inviting whiff of a wood-burning fireplace. We walk past some slender birches toward the restaurant.

We are seated across from the fireplace next to a window overlooking a golf course and picturesque ice-skating rink, where children glide around in delight. Our servers greet us with tea mugs, freshly heated and warm to the touch. We eat roasted veggies and pesto-crusted mahi-mahi with homemade caraway sourdough on the side. An antler chandelier hangs above us while classics by Joni Mitchell and other Americana singer-songwriters softly play in the background, giving the whole experience a woodsy frontiersman feel.

As we wrap up our meal, we ask our servers about drink recommendations for dinner that evening. With a chuckle, they tell us about Wisconsin’s version of the old-fashioned cocktail, which features the typical muddled sugar, bitters, and bourbon, but with a surprise splash of Sierra Mist. It sounds like a genuine must-try to me.

3 p.m.: We drive a mile or so to The American Club for check-in. For a roughly five-square-mile town, Kohler requires a considerable amount of driving, with each of its facilities about a mile apart. There’s a free shuttle for guests to get from place to place, but right now, we have all of our belongings.

The receptionist informs us we are staying at the neighboring Carriage House, which is the preferred location for those with spa reservations, since it shares a building. I am momentarily wistful that we have to leave the immaculate American Club lobby, with its rich wood carpentry, thick, red floral rugs, and tufts of evergreen garland. I feel instantly better when I’m told we’ll be returning later for our dinner reservation at The Wisconsin Room, which is located just off the lobby through what appears to be a fire-lit library and reading room, complete with a baby grand piano.

3:30 p.m.: It turns out I had nothing to lament. The Carriage House is just as inviting, with a fire roaring inside its elegant lobby. The decor is slightly more midcentury modern here, though a handsome wooden mantel frames the fireplace and ties in the classic American motifs from next door. Just off the lobby is a spacious breakfast nook with black-and-white checkered tile. We’re told a full continental breakfast will be served there starting at 6 a.m.

The bellhop wheels our things and shows us to our room. Right away, I amuse myself with the skylight shade just inside the room’s entryway, a novel detail that tickles my intrigue for both its practicality and sophistication. The Carriage House feels like a medieval castle, our room the queen’s sleeping quarters. Part of turndown service, I learn, is closing the skylight shade before bed. So of course, I have to try it myself.

Our room features Kohler’s latest fixtures, all in a French Gold finish, and even includes a third sink—two in the bathroom and one in the main area—so that one guest can refresh themselves while the other is soaking in the spacious tub. Speaking of the tub, Alexis is thrilled by the Diptyque products lining it.

4 p.m.: She has some work to do, so I head to the nearby Kohler Design Center, a public showroom housed in a former recreation hall for the company town’s residents. Upon first sight, the well-lit, 36,000-square-foot building feels like a collaboration between Ikea and Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, but for adults with refined taste. Inside, the amicable product consultants orient me with the center’s layout. They encourage me to start on the lower floor, where visitors can walk through relics of Kohler family history. I linger at the love letters between Herbert Vollrath Kohler, another son of Kohler’s founder, and his wife, Ruth DeYoung, who was a successful journalist and women’s editor of the Chicago Tribune when the couple got married in 1937. (Their union took place ten years after Kohler began releasing bath and kitchen fixtures in now iconic colorways, some of which were revived from the archive last year as part of an exclusive collection.)