Charles Ashley Hardy, a Boston mining engineer whose family had vacationed on Cape Cod for three generations, spent the early 1900s quietly buying up farmland in Chatham to build a hunting lodge for himself and his circle. Construction began in 1913 on land that had previously been worked as a farm, and Chatham Bars Inn opened for its first overnight guests on June 9, 1914, offering amenities well ahead of their time, including steam heat, saltwater baths, and produce grown on the property’s own farm decades before farm-to-table became a restaurant trend.
Hardy died in a hunting accident in 1924, and a group called the Chatham Associates took over, expanding the lodge into a full resort that drew guests including Henry Ford and members of the Dutch royal family. The inn stayed in continuous operation through the following century, culminating in an extensive 2006 renovation that modernized the main building and cottages while preserving their original character.