The Great Falls
Falls Village Inn is located in the tiny town center of Canaan, Connecticut, situated amongst the picturesque Litchfield Hills and the Berkshires. The Town of Canaan, established in 1738, became known as Falls Village because of the Great Falls of the Housatonic River.

The Housatonic, which in Indian language means “place beyond the mountains”, serves as the western boundary for the town of Canaan, which was divided into two towns, Canaan and North Canaan, in the mid-1800s. Scores of visitors learn that maps say one thing and townspeople say another: North Canaan is locally referred to as Canaan, and the Town of Canaan, in honor of the powerful Housatonic and its Great Falls, is proudly known as Falls Village.

A Rich History
The Falls were highly utilized and beneficial to the town and the entire Northwest Corner. The town realized early industrial prominence from the saw mill and grist mill built at the Falls, followed by an ironworks and fulling mill. The region's iron ore, limestone, and forests were important to American during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and the iron industry spawned several furnace makers in surrounding towns, including nearby Amesville and Cornwall Bridge.

Today, Falls Village Inn, established in 1834, is paying homage to its heritage. Major renovations and refurbishment are restoring the beloved Inn to its earliest historical roots, and reminding townspeople and visitors from all points of its rich life story.

A Design for Its Time
Northwest Connecticut was a bustling corner at the period of the inn’s inception, when it was called the Dudley House, and served as a coach stop prior to the railroad expansion in 1840. At this time, the Federal period architectural styles had been giving way to more adventuresome and picturesque styles of Gothic Revival and the Italianate periods.

The Inn’s original design was Italianate, most probably taken from popular American pattern books used by builders of the time. Andrew Jackson Downing, a prominent landscape architect and pattern book author, favored the Italianate style for its “broad roofs, ample verandas and arcades”, and thought the style extremely suitable for warm summers. The façade was Tuscan-inspired, and the Inn featured a centered portico, projecting bay windows, small balconies, a veranda and a low-pitched roof with wide, overhanging eaves.

The earliest existing photograph of the Inn showed earthtone clapboard siding, rather than stucco, with dark painted woodwork on the veranda and bay windows. The dining porch did not then exist.

A New Beginning
Inn ownership, and associated properties such as a hotel, office barns and a spring used by the tavern, changed hands several times in the mid- to late 1800s, including a stint of ownership by the Falls Village Water Power Company. In 1892, James Kennard’s purchase of the property and buildings brought a huge change with a complete renovation to incorporate elements of the then-popular Queen Anne style of design, and a name change from Dudley House to Berkshire Inn. The renovated Inn then boasted an extended veranda around the north side of the building, and the porch posts and balusters were decorated with more elaborate forms with the use of new “power tools”. The original buff tones of the building were changed to white.

Since this time, there have been renovations, but little change in the design of the building, until now. Shutters were removed, the north porch was enclosed to allow for wintertime dining and fire exits were provided from the second floor at the front and rear of the building. (A 1920 fire that destroyed the interior of the Inn lead to the establishment of the Falls Village Fire Company). The Inn was closed for a two-year period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but has been in operation at all other times, with several name changes and more than 15 owners.