If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD275.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Just west of Massachusetts in Upstate New York, Little Cat Lodge has taken one old stagecoach station, upcycled some mushroom wood and added a few felines to create every New Yorker’s new favourite hideaway. The Alpine import has kept all of its best Swiss-chalet features, but it now comes with extra bright red panelling, striped, checked or floral soft furnishings and a healthy scattering of granny-chic cushions. Locals love the Tavern, which is the perfect place for carb-loading before or after trips to the piste (helpfully located directly in front of the hotel).
11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 4pm, but earlier arrivals (after 2.30pm) can often be accommodated.
Prices
Double rooms from £242.13 ($297), including tax at 8 per cent.
More details
Rates usually include breakfast.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout, communal minibar. In rooms: smart TV, Marshall speaker and DS & Durga bath products.
Our favourite rooms
The Double Doubles at Little Cat Lodge are perfect for families and groups – but not as good as the multi-room suites, which sleep five and eight respectively.
Poolside
The outdoor pool is open during the warmer months, from sunrise to sunset.
Spa
There’s no spa but Little Cat Lodge does have a barrel sauna in the woods on a hillside behind the main house.
Packing tips
If you’re coming in winter, skiing should be on your agenda, so bring all of the necessary Alpine accoutrements. And you won’t regret packing an Edith Wharton novel to read.
Also
There’s one ADA-approved room with its own parking space right outside, an adapted bathroom and a signal button for the hearing-impaired; plus ramps for wheelchair access to the main house.
Keep cosy beside the fire or in one of the olive-green booths, or head outside to marvel at the mountain.
Dress Code
Lumberjacks would love it here.
Hotel restaurant
The Tavern is popular with Little Cat’s locals, so it’s wise to book, especially during ski season. Hudson Valley produce is put to use in dishes inspired by the Alpine motherland, including pork schnitzel. Breakfast is a Continental-style spread of pastries and breads made in-house, granola and cheese and charcuterie.
Hotel bar
The Tavern menu is also served in the bar. Martini fans can enjoy a Little Cat take on the classic, which involves cucumber bitters and a liqueur from the mountains of Germany.
Last orders
The Tavern and bar are open for dinner from 5pm until 10pm Thursday to Monday. Breakfast hours are 7.30am to 10.30am daily.
Little Cat Lodge is on the New York-Massachusetts border in Upstate New York, next to Catamount Mountain. It’s just outside the Columbia County town of Hillsdale and close to Hudson, and Great Barrington over in Massachusetts.
Planes
The nearest airport is a 40-minute drive away in Albany. Road-trip fans will also be able to land in New York City and drive the 130 miles (a snip around here) north.
Trains
There’s an Amtrak station 25 minutes away by car in Hudson.
Automobiles
Public transport in the area is limited, so hiring or bringing your own vehicle is wise. There’s free parking for both hotel and restaurant guests. Drive time to Hudson is 25 minutes, and to both Boston and New York City it’s a two-and-a-half-hour journey. Great Barrington may be in another state, but it’s only a 15-minute drive away.
Worth getting out of bed for
There’s a mountain right in front of Little Cat Lodge so it would be rude not to at least attempt skiing down it (provided there’s snow, which there should be between late December and the end of March). The Catamount piste is one of three ski resorts in the southern Berkshires – others to hurl yourself down/zigzag elegantly across* are Great Barrington’s Butternut in Massachusetts and Otis Ridge (*delete as applicable). Anyone not hitting the slopes can go antique shopping in Great Barrington, apple picking at Little Apple farm and cidery, cycling along the Appalachian Trail and hiking to Bash Bish (but not Bop) Falls – and you’ll also be able to visit Edith Wharton’s Berkshire estate, the Mount, over in Lenox.
Local restaurants
There are places that will feed and water you in every direction, whether you want to head across to Massachusetts and try Prairie Whale in Great Barrington (which has an in-house butcher and charcuterie curer); or eat at the Maker in Hudson, which is styled as a grand European café. A 40-minute drive away in Germantown, Gaskins serves dishes such as duck with a coffee rub and parsnip puree, fried cauliflower with jalapeño and mint, and various wood-roasted things (pork chops, carrots, koginut squash).
Local bars
You can get suitably caffeinated for the piste (or any other activity) at Supernatural Coffee or Wylde in Hudson.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this mountain hotel in America and unpacked their checked shirts and hiking boots, a full account of their bucolic break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Little Cat Lodge in Upstate NY…
Whether you’re coming for the snow or the (antique) shopping, Little Cat Lodge – in the foothills of the Berkshires and right up against the Massachusetts border in Hillsdale – will provide Swiss-chalet-style refuge with, yes, lots of hand-painted black cats to spot. The seven-acre plot is at the bottom of Catamount Mountain, which means piste proximity and minimal heavy lifting; and there’s a barrel sauna in the woods for more Euro flavour (which you can also taste, literally, in the restaurant’s classic Alpine cuisine).
The former stagecoach station and Swiss Hutte Inn has been revitalised with local materials, including mushroom wood for the walls and maple from the mountains for the beds. For when the snows have melted, there are trails to hike and bike, with a fire-pit ringed with Adirondack chairs for s’mores-toasting and singsongs afterwards. The lodge is between the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires, which means you’ll get two states for the price of one. Around here, black cats signal good luck.
