One wouldn’t think of visiting Paoli, Wisconsin, but there is a very good reason to. Especially if you like dairy.
The little community in Dane County is home to the Seven Acre Dairy Company which operates from a factory built in the 1880s. At 21,000 square feet, the building is on the National Register of Historic Places due to being one of the state’s biggest dairy manufacturers back in the day.
These days, however, the factory has been reborn as a boutique hotel with a restaurant, bar, and a micro-dairy plant that produces its own butter and soft-serve ice cream.
“We want guests to feel and sense that history from the moment they drive onto the site and step into the business,” says Nic Mink, chief restoration officer and proprietor of Seven Acre Dairy. “This place has been so important to the food of the region [as a cheese and butter factory] that we loved the idea of continuing that legacy.”
The entire establishment has been inspired by the original building, down to furniture in the hotel’s eight rooms having been made using the original factory’s reclaimed wood. Within the micro-dairy, guests can venture to the Swiss Room which pays tribute to the 200-pound cheese wheels that were made in the factory for a quarter of a century.
Visitors can also indulge in the dairy’s produce by dining on a Swiss cheese pie from 80 years ago, butter-basted beef, and even the more contemporary butter boards.