A 56-acre woodland retreat tucked into Holmes County, Ohio is in the middle of its biggest overhaul yet, with construction underway on a 12,000-square-foot spa and wellness center that will include a salt cave, a snow room and a bee therapy room. The Inn at Honey Run, an adults-only resort near Millersburg, expects the new wellness center to open in fall 2027, alongside remodeled hillside suites and updated main-building rooms.
A Spa Built for Whole-Body Wellness
According to Cleveland.com, the planned spa will include five traditional treatment rooms, a sauna, a steam room, float pods and a salt cave, along with a year-round outdoor hot tub and an indoor natural-style pool fitted with a nanobubbler. Locals and non-guests will be able to purchase day passes to the spa once it opens, a notable move for a property that otherwise caters exclusively to adults. Inn owner Jason Nies, 47, who bought the property in 2009, said the spa is intended to provide a whole-body wellness experience.
Nies also made a point of distinguishing the retreat from its surroundings, saying the inn is in Amish Country but is not an Amish resort, per the same Cleveland.com report. That distinction matters in a county where the Amish community makes up roughly 48% of Holmes County's 44,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The inn's adults-only policy, which caters exclusively to couples and adult guests seeking a quiet retreat without children, has long set it apart from the family-oriented attractions that dominate the region, according to Ohio Tourism.
From 1982 Farmhouse Retreat to Multi-Building Resort
The Inn at Honey Run was founded in 1982 by Marge Stock, who co-founded the property with Margret Schlichting after the pair worked together at Stouffer's Restaurants and ran a corporate event-planning business, according to the inn's own blog. The resort's footprint grew over the following decades: the 25-room main building opened first, and 12 earth-sheltered Honeycomb suites, built into the hillside, were added in 1988, per the inn's history. Two cottages and three loft suites followed later.
Under the current renovation push, the inn has remodeled all 12 Honeycomb suites, which feature gas fireplaces and east-facing patios. Each suite now has distinctive furniture, wall colors and window treatments, plus a QR code detailing its furnishings and interior design. Nies said the Honeycomb rooms became more elegant after the renovation, the station's report notes. The custom furniture came from Homestead Furniture, which has a 30,000-square-foot showroom, an on-site factory and a color lab, according to Visit Amish Country.
Main Building Rooms and Cottages Still Mid-Renovation
The remodel of all 25 rooms in the main building is currently about one-third complete, with the inn planning to finish the rest next year. One of the property's two cottages has already been remodeled, and the second is slated for an overhaul in 2027 as well. Nies also hopes to add three small art studios next year, including space for a woodworker and a glass artist, per the same account.
The inn closed an earlier, smaller spa back in 2012, making the new wellness center effectively a return to a service the property once offered on a much smaller scale. Room rates at the inn currently start at about $200 per night, while the renovated Honeycomb rooms start at $399 per night. Longtime guests Kathleen and Ken Blake have visited the inn annually for 25 years, according to the report.
Art Trail and Fine Dining Round Out the Grounds
Beyond the lodging, the inn's free Open Air Art Museum debuted in 2015 and now spans a 1.5-mile wooded trail featuring sculptures and a haiku walk with 30 poems inscribed on 30 boulders. Nies was inspired to create the museum after visiting a forest sculpture park in Latvia, according to Ohio Magazine, and he has since installed works such as Lauren Skunta's Archer's Roost, built from 12,000 suspended paint sticks; Nies aims to eventually host roughly 70 outdoor installations across the grounds.
The resort's restaurant, Tarragon, serves upscale Alpine-style cuisine daily for brunch and dinner and features floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the forest. The restaurant was named one of the 100 most scenic restaurants in America by Town & Country Magazine in 2017, based on OpenTable diner reviews, according to Wikipedia. The grounds also keep about 18 sheep and once yielded an unusual discovery: in July 2019, a 12-year-old vacationing guest found a 10,000-year-old fossilized woolly mammoth molar in Honey Run Creek, a find later confirmed by geology faculty from Ohio State University, Ashland University and the College of Wooster, according to The History Blog.
Part of a Booming Regional Tourism Economy
The inn's roughly $200-to-$400 nightly rates sit within a county where tourism carries outsized economic weight. Holmes County Commissioners estimate that tourism accounts for approximately 20% of the county's Gross Domestic Product, with the region drawing more than 2.6 million annual visitors who generate over $500 million in local spending. Statewide, TourismOhio reported that Ohio tourism reached nearly 245 million visits in 2025, generating about $58 billion in total economic impact and supporting more than 447,000 jobs.
All of the upgrades, from the Honeycomb suite overhaul to the planned spa, art studios and finished cottage renovation, are set to wrap up in time for the inn's 45th anniversary in 2027. The Inn at Honey Run sits about 80 miles south of Cleveland, roughly halfway between Millersburg and Berlin, and lists its contact information at innathoneyrun.com.
