Battell opened the Bread Loaf Inn for summer business in June 1866, having already added a dining room and sleeping quarters to the modest farm house. Boarders came from as far away as Boston, New York City, and Chicago, and as their numbers grew so did the Inn, sprouting wings and floors and outbuildings. Middlebury architect Clinton Smith, known throughout Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire, designed the Inn’s final expansion in 1894, creating 50 guest rooms and dinner seating for 250. A 1917 brochure describes the Inn as having a “quaint irregularity”, with gravity fed plumbing and rooms heated by fireplaces and lit with candles and kerosene lamps.
The Inn’s greatest feature was the outdoors. Hiking was the most popular pastime but guests were also invited to golf, ride horses, fish, swim, canoe, and play various lawn games. Brochures noted the mountain views and land that Battell had recently purchased, and listed nearly twenty Bread Loaf region trips to be explored on foot or by carriage. For destinations more than a day away, Battell had conveniently purchased overnight stops.