Rhinebeck, NY · Historic Inn · Est. 1766
The Beekman Arms
America's oldest continuously operating inn — and Rhinebeck's centre of gravity for Hudson Valley weekends.
America's oldest continuously operating inn — and Rhinebeck's centre of gravity for Hudson Valley weekends.
"America's oldest continuously operating inn since 1766 — Rhinebeck's centre of gravity for Hudson Valley weekends."
Since 1766, The Beekman Arms has poured drinks and rented rooms continuously through the American Revolution, the Civil War, two world wars, and every president from Washington onward. That last fact is not metaphor: George Washington genuinely stopped here, as did Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who held campaign rallies on the front porch. The inn is the oldest continuously operating hostelry in America, and it wears the title without affectation. The original 1766 Tap Room — low-ceilinged, hand-hewn beams, fieldstone hearth — still serves dinner every evening of the year.
The property has 73 rooms across two distinct buildings. The historic main inn sits at the centre of Rhinebeck village, on the corner of Mill Street and Route 9, and contains the original guest rooms — sloping floors, four-poster beds, the occasional working fireplace. A short walk down the road, the Delamater Inn occupies a cluster of Carpenter Gothic cottages built in 1844 by architect Alexander Jackson Davis. These board-and-batten houses, with their pointed windows and gingerbread trim, are some of the finest surviving examples of American Gothic Revival domestic architecture, and the rooms inside have been preserved with the same care given to a museum exhibit.
The dining room is regionally famous. The current chef has held the kitchen for years, and the menu draws from Hudson Valley farms, dairies, and orchards within a thirty-mile radius. Sunday brunch books out a week ahead in autumn. The Tap Room itself is the kind of bar that does not need to advertise its credentials: locals drink alongside weekenders, the bartender remembers names, and the cocktails are made the way they were when the original ones were invented. Breakfast is included for inn guests and served in a sun-filled colonial dining room.
Beekman Arms is the heritage answer rather than the boutique answer to a Hudson Valley weekend. If the question is design polish and infinity pools, look to Hutton Brickyards or Troutbeck. If the question is which property has watched 260 years of American life unfold from the same front door, the Beekman is unambiguous. The village position is the second great asset: walk out of the lobby and you are on Rhinebeck's main street, where the antiques shops, independent bookstore, and Saturday farmers' market are all within five minutes on foot.
Antiques country surrounds the inn in every direction. Hyde Park, Millbrook, and the river towns south of Rhinebeck are dense with dealers, estate sales, and dealers-in-dealers. The inn's front desk keeps a running list of which barns are open this weekend. Use the Beekman as a base for two or three days, drive a small loop each morning, return to the Tap Room for dinner. The rate from $200 to $400 a night, depending on building and season, is the most defensible value among Hudson Valley's serious heritage properties.
For couples whose romance runs through American history rather than mood lighting, the Beekman is the right anniversary. Book a fireplace room in the main inn, dinner in the Tap Room, breakfast in the colonial dining room. Saturday morning at the Rhinebeck farmers' market two blocks away, an afternoon antiquing through Millbrook, dinner back at the inn. The property does not stage anniversaries — it simply has been the setting for 260 years of them, which is its own form of romance.
A Delamater cottage room is one of the better small solo retreats on the East Coast. The Carpenter Gothic cottages are quiet, separated from the main inn, and the village outside the door means a guest travelling alone is never trapped at the property. Read in the cottage in the morning, walk to Oblong Books at lunch, write in the Tap Room with a glass of something in the late afternoon. The Beekman handles solo guests with the matter-of-fact courtesy of an inn that has been doing this since 1766.
For multi-generational holidays — Thanksgiving, the Dutchess County Fair in August, the Sinterklaas festival in early December — the Beekman is the family choice. Book a cluster of rooms across the main inn and the Delamater cottages, so grandparents have the historic experience and the children have a small house to themselves. The village is walkable for every age. Sinterklaas weekend, when Rhinebeck dresses for a Dutch Christmas pageant, is the booking that should go in twelve months ahead.
Rates checked May 2026. Price may vary by date.
The Beekman Arms has been the centre of gravity for Hudson Valley weekends since 1766. Start with the right inn, then let Rhinebeck and the river do the rest.
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