Waterbury Resort

In 1910, Doc Waterbury purchased about one hundred and thirty-seven acres of land two miles east of Russells Point, on Waterbury Road, and built a hotel known as the Sunset Hotel. Mr. Waterbury also built twenty-seven cottages, a grocery store, boat landing, and convention hall, and changed the name to Waterbury Hotel and Resort. Not long thereafter, brothers Roy and Cliff Sutton, from Xenia, purchased the entire complex and the hotel was renamed the Sutton Brothers Waterbury Hotel. Roy’s two sons had no interest in running the hotel, but his daughter Mildred stayed home and later ran the hotel and resort.

The Sutton Brothers or Waterbury Resort included several cottages for rent to vacationers who travelled from near and far. Many of the vacationers arrived in automobiles, the new mode of transportation for the upper and middle class traveler in the first part of the twentieth century. The hotel burned down after being struck by lightning in 1924, and Mildred Sutton sold most of the property on Waterbury Road to “prominent persons representing all parts of the state who built summer homes on the Waterbury lots.” The hotel and 22 cottages remained open as a resort for another four decades. The area between Dunn’s Pond and the lake is now a mix of closely spaced homes and cabins – especially along the water front – and the Pirate’s Cove Condominiums, consisting of 36 condominiums in seven buildings, built in 2007.

1916