November 19, 2025
By Michelle Madden
Photographs by Rana Faure
Walking into the Christmas Fair at the Merwinsville Hotel Restoration is like taking a trip in a time capsule. The floors are sloped, the ceilings low, the smell of old wood and the feeling of Christmas’ past are pervasive. Dominating the space is a Charles Dickens miniature village, with an electric train meandering through.
There is a holiday arts-and-crafts show featuring local artisans, selling one-of-a kind gifts; a miniature amusement park has rides that move, from a time when toys were made to last; there’s a crowd of nutcrackers—and not just your standard soldier-style nutcrackers, but rock-star and Frankenstein nutcrackers! Freshly cut trees and handtied wreaths are for sale. And if all of that is not enough: There’s free hot chocolate.
With the industriousness of Christmas elves, each year a small group of volunteers, led by the indomitable Georganne Bensh, works day and night—well over 1,000 hours—to bring the fair to life. It is an enormous operation with intricate details, sequenced steps, and sheer muscle. Seven tables are precisely lined up, to support the village and train, with its dedicated power and lighting system.
Thirty-six heavy boxes have to be brought up from the basement, containing 130 village houses, landscaping, trains and tracks, wagons, and toy people. It takes 14 days just to unpack and place the village.
“In the end,” says Bensh with a twinkle in her eye, “it’s worth the pain and suffering.”
What makes this holiday fair so authentic is that the hotel was built the same year—though an ocean apart—that Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol.
In 1843, local entrepreneur Sylvanus Merwin—upon learning that the Housatonic Railroad would be routed through the area—bought the land, built the hotel, and then (when the lawyers arrived to negotiate for right-of-way through his land) was more than happy to oblige, with one caveat: All trains must stop at his hotel for meals. Oh, and the station had to be named after him: Merwinsville. (He also appointed himself station master, just to be sure things went as planned.)
Merwin operated the hotel until 1877, when the Pullman Car—which allowed for eat-on-board meals—no longer traveled this route. After 1915, the trains bypassed the station altogether. It was bought by a family as their residence, then for 30 years after that was left vacant, and began the slow process of death-by-abandonment.
In the 1970s, a local man, George Haase, saw the potential in its withered beauty, bought the hotel for one dollar, established a nonprofit, and with the devotion of many volunteers over nearly 50 years, has lovingly restored it. It is one of the nation’s oldest purpose-built hotels.
So when you come to the fair and your senses awaken to the joys of the season, remember the well-fed travelers who stood on the same floor boards, nearly 200 years ago. As the daughter of George Haase and president of the hotel, Jeremy Ruman, said, “If you don’t get into the Christmas spirit here, there’s no hope for you.”
The fair this year will be held November 28 to 30 and December 5 to 7, from 10 am to 5 pm. Admission is free.
