Honeycomb room is more than a hole in the ground
Sunday, September 14, 2008
By Gretchen McKay, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Gretchen McKay/Post-Gazette
The earth-sheltered "Honeycomb" rooms at the Inn at Honey Run in Millersburg, Ohio, were dug out of a hillside above the main lodge and include private rock-curved patios.
Holmes County in Ohio's Amish Country is probably most famous for its pastoral farmscapes and the Old Order Amish who traverse its roads in horse-drawn buggies. But it also boasts peaceful wooded areas where one can hike, hunt or pitch a tent.
And no place is more comfortably sylvan than the Inn at Honey Run, a serene oasis of nature and wildlife between the tiny villages of Millersburg and Berlin.

What drew us there on a recent visit to the area, though, wasn't a chance to relax in its upscale contemporary lodge but to hunker down, Hobbit-style, in one of its 12 earth-sheltered Honeycomb rooms.

A hotel room that's literally carved into a hillside might strike some as kind of creepy. (Batman, or maybe just bats, immediately come to mind.) But our recently remodeled room in the Honeycombs was pretty cool, and not just because earth-sheltered spaces are less susceptible to the impact of extreme outdoor air temperatures; even on a relatively warm summer evening, we were able to turn on the gas log in the room's floor-to-ceiling sandstone fireplace without the place getting too hot.

Rather, we were charmed by the way its oval rock-walled patio afforded a spectacular, but still completely private, view of the rolling countryside below (we were able to bird watch with our morning coffee and watch sheep grazing nearby). We also liked the feeling of being totally secluded from the crowds, as the building in which these cozy rooms are located is tucked away behind a thick grove of trees above the main lodge.
Most of all, we enjoyed the fact we were staying someplace completely different from the standard hotel/motel rooms you find in most tourist towns. The concept might seem a little dated; interest in underground houses soared in the 1970s when the Arab oil embargo drove energy prices through the roof (or what we thought was through the roof!). But with today's green building movement, earth-sheltered housing is booming again.

You could probably say the same for the rooms, which were built in the late '80s and have a retro, ski-lodge vibe. But isn't that the point in Amish Country -- to take a step back in time?

Besides, any place that includes the twin delights of an in-suite Jacuzzi and complimentary breakfast delivered to your door can't be bad. Our only regret is that we didn't also work in a "serenity" massage at the inn's spa ($90 for 60 minutes) or dinner at its windowed gourmet restaurant.