History of the Tolland Inn

The History of the Tolland Inn

Tolland is twenty miles east of Hartford on Interstate 84, roughly halfway between Hartford and Sturbridge, MA. The town was named in 1713 and grew around an intersection of the New York to Boston, and Norwich to Springfield post roads. As the old county seat, and with the post road crossing, travelers have found shelter in Tolland for most of its long history. Taverns, inns, and hotels have at various times offered accommodations on the village Green.The last of these, the Steele House, began taking guests in January of 1914. Their guest register that first year showed guests from New York, Boulder, Colorado, and Changli, China. The Steeles ran the guest house until 1942, and owned the place until 1959. Susan and Steve Beeching bought the property in 1985 from a couple who were the last registered guests of the old Steele House. An extensive restoration and updating of the inn began, and two years later we opened as the Tolland Inn.

The Innkeepers are Susan and Steve Beeching. Susan is a Nantucket native and third generation innkeeper. Her grandmother owned Haddon Hall and her mother owned Eighteen Gardner Street Guest House. Both of these wonderful Nantucket inns are in operation today. Susan is a teacher with a career in Special Education. She currently teaches second grade and supervises our innkeeping. Steve is a designer and builder of fine furniture. His furniture pieces are in homes across this country , as well as in Japan and Italy. His work can also be seen throughout the inn mixed with the inn's antiques, as well as in the hand-tooled raised paneling and coffered ceiling of the sunporch. His touch is evident in hundreds of features of the inn: our canopy beds, diningroom table, the "fainting couch", pierced tin lighting fixtures, mirrored wall sconces in the upstairs hall, bedside shelves, the design of our t-shirts and mugs, down to the tissue holders in the bathrooms...

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Tolland Inn
63 Tolland Green
PO Box 717
Tolland, CT 06084-0717
860-872-0800
toll free: 877-465-0800

m a i l @ t o l l a n d i n n . c o m

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