For the night we booked a room at the Lakelawn Motel on Main Street in Yarmouth. The motel is built around a house originally erected by William Dodge Lovitt, a son of one of the founding families in Yarmouth and incidentally a very distant relative of us in some fashion.
The house was originally built in 1864 on the location of an older home that was torn down when the land was purchased by the Lovitt family. The home is a good example of the Gothic Revival style and after changing hands many times, no one wanted to tear it down because it is so beautiful. So, the home was moved back from the edge of the street and converted into a motel.
The rooms have seen better days but are extremely clean and kept up. The ‘heyday’ of the place was most likely in the 70s when motels were common in the province and travellers wanted to drive in and drive out without much fuss. Now bigger chains like the Comfort Inns have taken over and places like the Lakelawn catch most of the overflow from the chains; that is what keeps them in business.
Still, it is a unique place and also great if you get into town late and need an affordable place to stay (and you don’t need to worry about parking!).
