A Visit to French Lick, Indiana

Let’s step back in time for a romantic weekend getaway!

We celebrated our 4 year Wedding Anniversary this past April by taking a trip to the charming West Baden Springs Hotel at the French Lick Resort in French Lick, Indiana. This hotel was the perfect mixture of luxury and history. We spent one night exploring everything we could at the resort. French Lick is only a couple hours away so we a booked one night stay and did as much as we could.

Driving Distances to French Lick, Indiana

Louisville, Kentucky: 1 Hour 15 Minutes

Indianapolis, Indiana: 2 Hours 4 Minutes

Cincinnati, Ohio: 2 Hours 45 Minutes

Columbus, Ohio: 4 Hours 6 Minutes

Located at 8670 West State Road 56 - French Lick, Indiana

French Lick Resort

French Lick Resort consist of 3 hotels, West Baden Springs Hotel, French Lick Springs Hotel, and the Valley Tower. In 1845, The French Lick Springs was built. Back in the early 1900s the sulfur springs drew guest to visit this resort, later golf courses, a church, an Opera house, and a two story bicycle track/horse track was added. After a hotel fire in 1901, the hotel was to be transformed into a world class facility. They decided they were going to build the worlds largest free standing dome, thus creating the West Baden Springs Hotel. The resort has seen many changes and updates throughout the years.

In 1929, after the stock market crashed, the West Baden Springs Hotel was sold to the Society of Jesus in 1934. They occupied the West Baden Springs building, while French Lick Springs Hotel remained functioning. In 1967 changed owners again, the Northwood College owned the West Baden Springs Hotel until 1983. For the next 13 years the West Baden Springs was left uninhabited. In 1991 the dome had crumbled. In 2006 French Lick Springs reopened after a massive renovation by investors Bill and Gayle Cook. They were able to restore French Lick Springs and save West Baden Springs Hotel.

Visit https://www.frenchlick.com/history for more information on the history of this resort.

Atrium of the West Baden Springs Hotel

Stepping into the West Baden Springs is like being transported back in time. The atrium is the most breathtaking lobby I have ever seen. It was once considered the “8th wonder of the world.” There are tiny details throughout the entire room, from tiles to the lighting. The tile was actually laid by a Cincinnati based company called The Cassini Mosaic Tile Co. Being from Cincinnati, I found that so cool.

By day the room is lit from the sky, by night, the ceiling lights up with color changing lights. I could spend hours in this room. We actually spent a lot of time just sitting in the atrium taking in its’ beauty all hours of the day.

Room

We stayed in the West Baden Springs Hotel and this hotel was stunning from the inside out. From the atrium to the rooms, everything felt very grand. Our room was super spacious, the bathrooms were pristine and humongous. My absolute favorite part of the room was the bed. This bed was the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept on. (What I imagine sleeping on a cloud would feel like) They actually used to sell their beds and I can see why! We even looked on their website to see where to buy the beds and looked into it for our own home.

If you are curious about the beds I’ve included a link https://www.bowlesmattress.com/where-to-buy-west-baden-authorized-mattress-retailers.html

Activities

We only had one night, so we didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to explore everything that this resort had to offer. There’s something for just about anyone in the family from spas, a golf course, a bowling alley, a casino, a game room, multiple pools, etc.

We checked out the pools. They have both indoor and outdoor pools. I was surprised to see the outdoor pools were even open in April. They are heated, so even though it was only 50 degrees outside, there was still a few people swimming.

We walked the grounds of the West Baden exploring the gardens and taking in the views from the rocking chairs. It was really relaxing. There is an ice cream window right behind the rocking chair area so you can sit out there with a scoop of ice cream and watch the cars drive by.

They have a super cute trolley that takes you between the hotels. It runs from noon-8pm. You can also take a shuttle which runs 24 hours. We took the trolley over to French Lick Springs Hotel and checked out hotel and the casino. Between the hotels there is just so much you can do.

Food

The lobby smelled like cookies because of the ice cream parlor attached to the Starbucks. We checked out the restaurants at West Baden Springs for lunch, dinner, and breakfast. My favorite item was the quesadillas.

We had such a wonderful anniversary weekend. We are looking to plan a trip sometime in the fall to see the fall foilage.