The Restaurant at Sunset Hill

Sunset Hill House\"”A Grand Inn traces its history to the Grand Resort Hotels of the White Mountains. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, residents of Boston, Hartford, New York, Philadelphia and other eastern cities would arrive by train and horse-drawn coach to stay for weeks or months at the old resort hotels which were generally referred to as \"houses\" despite their huge scale. There, the wealthy and influential and their families exchanged the humidity, heat and pollution of coal-age America for the cool mountain air of New Hampshire (and Maine, Vermont and upstate New York too).Sunset Hill House in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, was particularly well-situated as a House due to its location high atop Sunset Hill Ridge which has been long-recognized as having the best accessible mountain views in New England. Construction began in 1880 after the railroad came to neighboring Lisbon Village (Sugar Hill Station) and by about 1910, Sunset Hill House could accommodate over 350 guests, 300 staff and all the animals needed to transport and feed a small town.With the coming of the automobile, increased ability of urban travelers to make \"day-trips, \" and the imposition of the graduated income tax, the age of the grand resort hotels began to close. One of the last to succumb was Sunset Hill House. Finally, in the fall of 1973, due to an aging physical plant as much changes in its clientele, the main hotel welcomed the last of perhaps a million guests. Later that year practically everything of value was sold at auction and the main building torn down in 1974.The present Sunset Hill House is no longer \"a grand hotel, \" but rather \"a grand inn.\" It was also built beginning in 1880, but not for guests. Instead, it was servants\' quarters. About 1900, management realized that many of the servants enjoyed a better view than most of the paying guests, and was converted to guest accommodations. In period advertising.