Glen Area Lodging
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This photo dated 1952 show the central area of Glen. To get your bearings the building in the center is today's Red Parka Pub. In 1952 it was Grants General Store.
The Woodshed is located about a half mile west of the junction of West Side Road and Rte 302. Originally owned by Pop Fosey, beginning about 1920, he had six tourist rooms in the main house and eleven separate cabins. In the era of Prohibition it was a well known Roadhouse serving illegal alcoholic beverages. In 1953 the property was purchased by Bill and Evalyn Gimber and they operated it as an Inn and Restaurant until 1959. A prominent feature in those days were two wooden horses that stood guard out front. The Woodshed is now the private residence of Norman and Kathleen Head, the Gimber's son. Norman is a local Realtor and the President of the Bartlett Historical Society.
Source Material The Latchstring Was Always Out Aileen Carroll, 1994. Post card photos courtesy of Michael Bannon and Dave Eliason.
July 1, 1943 Frank Foisey, a resident of Glen for the past ten years, died Friday at Memorial Hospital after a prolonged illness. Mr Foisey was born in Putnam, Conn 75 years ago. He came to New Hampshire in the early 1930’s for his health and for the past ten years had been the proprietor of a camp and restaurant known as the Woodshed Cafe. Services were held Monday at Putnam, after which burial was effected there in the family lot. Mr Foisey is survived by a brother, Joseph, of Los Angeles, California, by one daughter, Mrs Joseph Norbury, formerly of the Canal Zone, now residing in Glen, by a son, Fr Foisey, a missionary in Haiti, and by four grandchildren.
For Victory Buy Bonds
The Meadowbrook is just east of the Rte 302/West Side Road Junction in Glen. It was a standard 1950's style motel with a couple of cabins. It was built by a man named Schoner about 1945.
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During the 1970's and 80's it was owned by Dorothy "Dot" & Charlie Loeschorn. Dot was also a registered nurse at Memorial Hospital in North Conway. When they sold the property in the mid 1980's they built and operated "Whippy-Dippy", an ice cream and mini golf operation, on Rte 302 near Sky Valley Motel. (Dot died in May 2013 in Lakeland Florida).
By 1990 the property was in a poor state of repair and was purchased by Bill Duggan who renamed it Will's Inn (after his son). Bill did major repairs and now Will's Inn is back on track with 23 units and a new addition directly across the street.
The Kennison's operated Saco River Cabins in Glen from about 1945 until 1969. From 1969 until 1992 Clara and Al Forbes operated the cabins. Al also operated the Sunoco Station in North Conway. These cabins were just across the street from the covered bridge.
Pleasant Valley Hall, became Pleasant Valley Farm and then The Glenwood by the Saco. Today it is known as The Bernerhoff.
This Glen area Inn originally opened as Pleasant Valley Hall in 1893. The "Hall" part of the name came about because the proprietor's last name was Hall; probably a relative of Obed Hall who operated an Inn in Bartlett Village beginning in 1790. It was operated primarily as a boarding house for teamsters and loggers.
David and Marion Irving assumed ownership in 1928 and renamed the establishment to Pleasant Valley Farm.
In 1937 T.H. Brooks took over and he renamed it to Glenwood by the Saco, reportedly because he so adored the big Glenwood Stove in the kitchen.
Claire and Charlie Zumstein purchased the property in 1955 and renamed it to Bernerhoff, The House of Berne, which had been their hometown in Switzerland. In 1971 Claire's nephew, Herman Pfeuti, took ownership of the Inn and continued the Swiss tradition.
During the 1980's Ted and Sharonb Wrobleski operated the Inn using the same name. They sold it sometime in the late 1990's and the subsequent owners became over-extended and the property was sold by foreclosure auction to the Realtor, Dick Badger. His managers continue to operate the property as of this writing (Jan 2013).
The 1910 Postcard below is signed by one member of the Hall family (the original owner) to a lady in Portland Maine.
Pine Cottage was the home of Minnie Cannell who operated Cannell's Camps and Minnie Cannell's Tea Room. This group of buildings is located between Jericho Road and what is now the Massa-Schussers Ski Club. The cabins were a new idea for the travelling public and these were the second such group of cabins to be constructed in New Hampshire. (The first were in Franconia Notch near the Old Man of the Mountains.) In 1937 the Cannell's moved to their present location in Intervale across from the Scenic Vista.
Read more from the Source Material "The Latch String Was Always Out by Aileen Carroll 1994
The Glen Inn. This was originally Stilphen's Farm; currently it is the Storybook Inn. The original Stilphen's Farm consisted of about 150 acres and the original structure was built in the mid 1820's. A guide-book from the 1880's lists Cornelius Stilphen's boardinghouse with 20 rooms with rates from six to nine dollars a week. Probably over the years the Stilphens had regularly taken in summer boarders as did many other farm families in that period.
Stilphen's Farm was sold in 1903 to the Libbys of Gorham whose timberland abutted the Conway Lumber Company's Rocky Branch Holdings. The Libbys' logs were brought out of the woods by Conway Lumber Teams and loaded at the Maine Central Siding in Glen. The former Stilphen farmstead served as a boardinghouse for the teamsters. Fires occurring in 1912-1914 brought a halt to lumbering and the old Stilphen house was deserted until 1947 except for a caretaker, Percy Wells who did a little farming and attempted to keep the old house in a decent state of repair.
In 1947 the property was purchased by Raymond and Stella Clark. They did extensive renovations and re opened it as the Storybook Inn. In 1956 they added two additional wings and shortly after that added motel type units for a total of 78 rooms. The Clark's daughter Charless and her Husband Jan Filip now manage the place.
January 2020: Jan Filip sent us this up-date:
Thank you for posting the article, it's quite interesting. You would think I should know these things but when we are young we don't always appreciate history like we should.
My father still resides at the property. The property is open from roughly June to October and my eldest sister returns to help for the summer. At 93 my father refuses to retire so we let him run things his way. Yes the property is not in the shape it once was and the future is uncertain.
The Storybook Inn was the founding business that led to the Glen Dairy Queen, the North Conway Dairy Queen, handled by my sister and her husband, Lucy and Brian Eling. The Storybook also led to the Golden Gables Inn and the Golden Apple Inn handled by me.
When you walk through the basement of the Storybook Inn you can see all the rough sawn timber some of which still has bark, used for framing as well as huge slabs of granite used to make the foundation. The first expansion of rooms started in the mid 60's with 20 units being added around the outdoor pool that you see from the road. This is the building that lost 4 rooms last winter due to snow load so rebuilding the section might not be prudent. Starting in 1978 two new sections for a total of 20 rooms were added to the back of the property.
Further expansion continued in 1981 when the original barn which had been connected to the back of the boarding house was removed to make room for a new kitchen and additional dinning room seats. As a 5 year old I remember being scared to walk in the back corner of the barn as it had the remnants of the outhouse. Two toilet seats leading to a black hole, always afraid you would get sucked in... The last two expansions happened in 1986 with 24 rooms being constructed in back on "Hillside" and in 1990 the indoor pool was added. The old pictures are great for a walk down memory lane.
Glen area - Rte 16 going north
Charlie's Cabins was owned by Charles Edward Way (1891 to 1960) and was located on Rte 16 just north of Storyland. He had 23 cabins, a restaurant and gasoline pumps on the premises. It was in operation from the early 1930's until his death in 1960.
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In 1961 Robert Morrell, of Storyland, purchased the property from the Way Family and envisioned a motel built in the style of chalets he had seen in Bavaria when he was in the military. A friend of his of the 10th Mountain Division drew the sketches which Morrell later showed to Ernest Mallett . The end result was the Linderhof Motor Inn which was built by Ernest Mallett in 1966. (Source: "The Latchstring Was Always Out" - Aileen Carroll - 1994)
Linderhoff Motor Inn 1970's
From 1970 to 1975 the Inn was operated by Jim and Kathy Sheehan and Anna Mae Cimbak. Jim moved along to Amoskeag Distributors Company (Miller Beer) by the end of the 1970's. Kathy died in 2007 and Jim passed away December 2022 The property was later purchased by Storyland (next door) and used as employee housing.
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