Thorgeir Garmo, the seventh of sixteen children on a Lom farm, reportedly threw down his tools one evening after a long day irrigating fields, deciding he wanted more than a farmhand’s future. With his wife Embjørg, he opened a two-story timber coaching station in 1897, offering rooms, meals, and horse stabling to travelers crossing the mountain routes linking eastern and western Norway through Lom. The posting business ran at capacity until the First World War, when motorcars began replacing horse-drawn transport and changed the nature of the trade.
Garmo’s son Torgeir and his wife Ingrid tore down the original building in 1949 to build a larger hotel, naming one wing Amerika in honor of the many American visitors who came through. Chef Arne Brimi joined the kitchen in 1978 under third-generation owner Svein Garmo and built a national reputation for the hotel’s local, farm-to-table cooking. The property still includes Gaukstadstugu, one of Norway’s best-preserved 17th-century timber houses.