After a yearlong hiatus, the Horned Dorset Inn — founded by Kingsley Wratten ‘64 and Harold Davies MA’65 — is reopening its doors, bringing fine French cuisine and Victorian-style overnight guest accommodations back to Central New York.
The Horned Dorset Inn in Leonardsville, NY was founded by two Colgate alumni
The pair originally opened the inn as a restaurant in 1977, envisioning a utopian space that would foster discussion and collaboration between artists, something they had developed an appetite for while studying at Colgate. Their vision included collaboration between everyone from musicians to painters.
For 35 years the inn operated with that goal in mind, and expanded to include overnight accommodations, a bookstore called Utopia, and even a luxury resort branch in the Caribbean called the Horned Dorset Primavera. The development of the Horned Dorset was catalogued fully in the Summer 2011 issue of The Colgate Scene.
The temporary closure of this past year was intentional as Wratten and Davies launched the latest addition to their artists’ paradise, the Horned Dorset Art Colony.
The art colony is within walking distance of the inn. It will serve as a venue for artists from multiple disciplines to develop and explore their work during month-long residencies that remove the distractions of everyday life. In the evenings, the artists will come together at the inn to share their creations and insights with one another and the inn’s other guests.
The Horned Dorset Inn and Art Colony are located in Leonardsville, NY, just 20 minutes from the Colgate campus.