The Colonial Hotel was built in 1888. It replaced the original Senter House, which had burned down. When first built, the hotel retained the name of the Senter House. The new hotel was much larger than the original. It became the grand hotel of Center Harbor. New owners changed the name to the Colonial Hotel in 1904. The Colonial burnt down in 1919 and was not replaced.

The New Senter House

Colonial Hotel Image Gallery

A gallery of images of the Colonial Hotel.

The Whittier Pine

The famed poet of Lake Winnipesaukee, John Greenleaf Whittier, was a frequent visitor to Center Harbor, where he stayed at the Sturtevant farm at the top of Sunset Hill, about a mile and a half from Center Harbor village, on what is now Dane Rd (Route 25B). Greenleaf spent many summers there. The farm had a sweeping view over Squam Lake, which, being to the west of the farm, would also be the direction in which the sun would set. Whittier enjoyed the huge white pine on the farm grounds, which he memorialized in a poem titled “The Wood Giant”. The tree stood alone in the middle of the pasture, and the reason that it had been spared was its misshapen trunk. Early in the tree’s life, an animal had damaged it so that it had no commercial value, but it still grew robustly, resembling a candelabrum. The tree came to be known as the Whittier Pine, and survived until 1950, when it was struck by lighting. Below are many postcards of the Whittier Pine. A corner of Squam Lake is seen in a couple of the postcards.

Whittier’s friend and frequent companion, Lucy Larcom, wrote about standing beneath the tree and watching the sun drop into Squam. “The sun went down like a ball of crimson flame, hot and red, in a band of warm mist that hung over the hills. The Wood Giant stood above me audibly musing. His twilight thoughts were untranslatable, but perhaps the wood thrushes understood, for they sent up their mystical chant from the thickets below, in deep harmony with the music of his boughs.”