ON PROPERTY
An Immersion King Suite at the 55-room Carriage House, which was fully renovated in 2025.
decorative and sophisticated works of art. Ironically, perhaps his biggest contribution had nothing to do with household functionality. Herb Kohler transformed Kohler from a plumbing fixtures company into a diversified luxury lifestyle brand through a singular idea: If Kohler could create beautiful, premium products for the home, it could also create premium experiences.
Kohler’ s experiences were centered on three pillars: hospitality, golf, wellness. One of his boldest moves was transforming The American Club, which opened in 1918 to house immigrant employees, into a hotel in 1981. His gamble paid off: It collected its first AAA Five-Diamond Award in 1985 and garnered the distinction for decades after. The Tudor-style, 240-room hotel also houses three restaurants, including The Immigrant Restaurant, where the tastingmenu experience can last up to three hours.( For a quicker alternative, the gastropub Horse & Plow fries up some of the best cheese curds in the state.)
Next door to The American Club is the Carriage House, which opened as a 50-plus-room annex in 1986. It closed in 2025 for a comprehensive renovation and reopened the next year with 55 refreshed
rooms and updated public spaces that immediately gave it a rate bump.( Average daily rates at Carriage House reach well above $ 1,000 per night during high season.) The renovation, led internally by Kohler’ s design team and Nina Kohler, the wife of current Kohler Co. CEO David Kohler, brought about a lighter and more refined residential aesthetic. Naturally, bathrooms were a focal point, redesigned as an extension of the ground-level Kohler Waters Spa and featuring Kohler products, such as soaking tubs, multi-port showers and refined finishes, such as Robern vanities, Ann Sacks tile and fixtures from the Castia line by Studio McGee.
THE MAVERICK Kohler’ s approach to modernization and growth begins with understanding what makes Kohler unique. And it was all the brainchild of HVK. Someone who understands that better than most is Stephen Beaumont, president of hospitality for Kohler Co. He worked with Herb Kohler for a decade in the early 2000s and returned to lead Kohler’ s hospitality division in 2025. He, among others, called Kohler, who passed away in 2022, a maverick and a visionary.“ He recognized the cultural significance
Whistling Straits, on Lake Michigan, was the brainchild of Herb Kohler, whose plans were carried out by legendary golf course architect Pete Dye.
and the potential of Kohler to be this destination and to become something more than simply a village for the people working in the factory,” Beaumont said.“ He always stretched things. He never liked the idea of being told he couldn’ t do something.”
His most audacious idea was Whistling Straits. In the 1980s, Kohler befriended another iconoclast, the famed golf course architect Pete Dye, whose previous work included the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island in South Carolina, both considered among the elite golf courses in the U. S. Dye courses are distinct: small, undulating greens, deep pot bunkers, deceptive shot angles. His
22 hotelsmag. com September 2026