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(Photograph by Paul J. Jakubovich, courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society)
When Plymouth businessman H. C. Laack built this hotel, now an inn and restaurant, he chose an ideal site on the road leading to the Chicago and North Western Railway depot and opposite the Plymouth Cheese Exchange. The exchange set cheese prices every Monday, allowing Plymouth to crown itself “Cheese Capital of the World.” The Laack became Plymouth’s leading hotel, catering primarily to traveling salesmen. In four large sample rooms on the ground floor, salesmen would set out their wares, and country merchants came to town to place their orders.
Swiss immigrant Hilpertshauser’s design displays a Queen Anne–flavored sense of movement, partly due to the profusion of metal garlands, rosettes, and foliation. Oriel windows, fabricated of galvanized iron, hang from the second story. Above the oriels, steeply pitched triangular dormers rise above the false mansard roof. The steel Mission style tiles cladding the dormers and the sheet-metal sheathing on the central shed dormer provide contrasting textures. The original entrance has been replaced, and the classical portico that once projected over the sidewalk is gone.