Winvian Farm is a private, luxury

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that tries to provide most of a vacationer's wants, such as food, drink, swimming, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping, on the premises. The term ''resort ...

located in

Morris, Connecticut Morris is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 2,256 at the 2020 census. Europeans first began to settle the area that became Morris about 1723. Originally part of the town of Litchfield, it was called the ...

History

Winthrop H. Smith, a founding partner of

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment bank ...

, and his wife, Vivian, purchased a 113-acre

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

farm in 1948, naming it "Winvian", after their combined names. Their son,

Winthrop H. Smith Jr. Winthrop Hiram "Win" Smith Jr. (born 1949 in New York, New York) is the former executive vice president of Merrill Lynch & Co. and Chairman of Merrill Lynch International, Inc. He spent 27 years at Merrill Lynch, beginning in 1974, after receivi ...

inherited the property and, with his wife, Maggie, commissioned the building of 18 individual architectural cottages on the property, completed in 2006. Winvian became wholly owned by Maggie Smith, who operates it as a

boutique hotel Boutique hotels are small inventory, design driven, unique hotels with their own character, personality and storytelling at the heart of their concept. Positioning is secondary for these hotels as they focus on authenticity and personalization ...

with Smith grandchildren, daughter Heather Smith, as managing director, and son Win Smith III, as director of sales and marketing.

Property

Winvian Farm, located in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut contains eighteen individualized cottages and one master suite, is a private Relais & Chateaux, AAA 5-Diamond Hotel & Restaurant which utilized no fewer than fifteen architects on the project. Each cottage has its own unique design based on each architect's vision to serve as a homage to Connecticut. For example, the Helicopter Cottage houses a

U.S. Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...

Sikorsky Sea King Pelican HH3F rescue helicopter in a guest bedroom equipped with all the amenities. Others include a Masonic-style temple, a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

, a treehouse, a cave.

Media coverage

Winvian has been featured on the Travel Channel's feature, ''Extreme Mind Blowing Hotels''. The show profiled some of the most unusual hotels in the United States. Each of the ten hotels featured had unique themes that set them apart.

References

{{coord, 41, 41, 49, N, 73, 12, 07, W, scale:10000, display=title Resorts in the United States Hotels in Connecticut Morris, Connecticut