Head for the (Hocking) Hills!
Lodge at Hocking College a delightful new destination
NELSONVILLE — The Hocking Hills makes a great destination for a day trip, with majestic views and engrossing activities just 90 minutes southeast of Columbus. But visitors who can spend a night or more in the picturesque region will be amply rewarded.
Not only can overnight visitors tour the lovely region at a more leisurely pace, but they can also explore a vast variety of lodging options.
Guest accommodations in the Hocking Hills range from luxurious lodges to secluded cabins to verdant campsites to economical inns. And now a new overnight destination in Nelsonville, the Lodge at Hocking College, provides a delightful if unexpected adventure in — wait for it — pedagogy.
Hocking College offers its students a variety of hands-on opportunities in many programs connected to travel and tourism, much to the benefit of the travelers and tourists who take advantage of top-notch college-affiliated ventures around Nelsonville.
The ventures include the renovated lodge adjacent to the college campus, purchased by the college and completely remodeled and reopened this year.
The lovely lodge is not only a comfortable place to stay, but also gives practical experience to students learning about hospitality and event management and many other fields.
The lodge offers 39 guest rooms, including four large loft rooms, plus event and meeting spaces.
Upon entering, guests will find a beautiful post-and-beam A-frame lobby featuring a cozy fireplace, comfortable seating area and adjacent bar.
The rustic lodge decor is echoed in the pretty guest rooms, furnished with timber bedsteads made with lumber sustainably harvested from college property and crafted by staff and students in the school’s timber harvestingand tree-care program.
The rooms also feature live-edge oak accent tables, barn-style interior doors and emerald glass leaflet sinks.
Lodge guests can also schedule spa services, managed, of course, by the college’s massage-therapy program.
Pet lovers will be happy to learn that pets up to 50 pounds are welcome at the lodge.
And even if you have no pet along, the lodge’s free Wi-fi makes it a great place to catch up on the latest Youtube cat videos after a day spent hiking remote trails with five-star rock formations but no cell signal.
At the end of one such recent day, I forewent the cat vids and opted for the
lobby bar.
There I hoisted a pint with instructor Eric Hedin and several of his students in the college’s Fermentation Sciences program.
The pints we hoisted were, of course, delightful ales crafted by the students in the college’s own small brewery, Star Brick Brewing, located within the lodge.
“I love to pass on my knowledge,” said Hedin, the college’s Fermentation Specialist (How’s that for a title?), as I sampled a Star Brick IPA named, like the brewery itself, for the famed Star Brick paving bricks once made in Nelsonville.
Civilization began with brewing, Hedin suggested, which did not seem at all unlikely as I enjoyed my juicy and hazy ale.
Among Hedin’s current students is Mackenzie Holt, the first woman to participate
in the relatively new fermentation program.
Holt said she developed a passion for beer and brewing while working at Brewdog brew pub in Columbus.
“Now I want to learn more and help make women feel more accepted in the brewing industry,” Holt said.
For my dinner, the brewers recommended the college’s own restaurant, Rhapsody Music & Dining, located on Nelsonville’s charming Public Square less than three miles from the lodge. After
my experience with the college lodge and college beer, I was ready to give college food the old college try.
Operated by managers, students and professional chefs from the college’s Culinary Arts program, the restaurant offered another unexpected pleasure, a first-class casual fine dining experience on the edge of the Appalachian foothills.
My first course, gazpacho, was magnificent. But I was a bit chagrined to learn that the restaurant was out of my entree choice, pork chops.
Instead, the waitress made a surprising suggestion — walleye.
“You won’t be disappointed,” she promised.
“That’s some pretty big talk,” I thought to myself, “sitting here in Nelsonville 150 miles from the nearest walleye shoal.”
But I needn’t have worried. The fresh walleye, encrusted with a tasty but light coat of salt and vinegar chips, was better prepared than any fish I’d had at Lake Erie this summer.
Need I add that Rhapsody also serves Star Brick beer?
The waitress, to her eternal credit, also offered me a sample of another Hocking College Fermentation Science product, pawpaw moonshine, made at the college-owned Black Diamond Distillery in nearby New Straitsville, home of the annual Moonshine Festival. It was, all-in-all, a meal to remember. Other college-affiliated businesses that travelers can enjoy are the Hungry Hawk Food Truck, serving up eats at regional events; Lake Snowden, a public lake and park managed by the college School of Natural Resources; and the Campus Nature Center, also operated by the Natural Resources program and offering information about Ohio wildlife and geology.
Steve Stephens is a freelance travel writer and photographer. Email him at sjstephensjr@gmail.com.