Ohio State Parks
If Maumee Bay is all about the water, then Mohican is all about the woods. And meetings that go to either park are looking for something different, said Dianna Rom, regional director of sales for Ohio State Parks.
“They’re trying to create a feeling among their attendees outside of the regular suit-and-tie meetings,” she said.
Ohio State Parks manages five lodges, each with a conference center. Maumee Bay Lodge and Mohican Lodge are two of the state’s most popular and most distinctive.
The 120-room Maumee Bay Lodge sits on the banks of Lake Erie in northwestern Ohio, about a 30-minute drive east of Toledo. The conference center’s 7,500 square feet of event space in eight flexible rooms provides views of Lake Erie. The 5,000-square-foot ballroom has a balcony overlooking Lake Erie, but groups also use the lodge’s “unconventional” meeting space, such as a bank of rocking chairs around the lobby’s double-sided fireplace.
Most groups also have an outdoor event, Rom said, usually a barbecue or a lobster bake in the lodge’s tent area or a bonfire on the shore of Maumee Bay. The lodge also has two patios and a 2,000-person outdoor amphitheater.
While Maumee Bay has a beach-cottage vibe, Mohican Lodge is rustic and woodsy. Surrounded by Mohican Memorial State Forest, the 96-room lodge is almost equidistant between Cleveland and Columbus. The conference center has more than 5,000 square feet in six function rooms, including a 2,500-square-foot ballroom that can be split into three smaller spaces.
Groups also use two solarium-like rooms that overlook the park and a window-walled private dining area for up to 75 guests. At night, they often end up gathering around the outdoor fire tables by the bar, Rom said. Both lodges offer plenty of nature-based team building. At Mohican, groups can enjoy zip lining, canoeing and a nearby ropes course. At Maumee Bay, they can go geocaching, do scavenger hunts or play a round on the resort’s Scottish-links-style golf course.
www.ohiostateparklodges.com
Bear Mountain State Park
New York
Bear Mountain State Park is only 45 minutes outside of New York City, and during the summer, ferries bring loads of daytrippers to the park, which is a popular hiking spot. But the park is also a favorite for meeting groups, and Bear Mountain Inn is working to attract more corporate business. Bear Mountain Inn was built in 1915 and has 15 guest rooms — 12 standard rooms and three suites— and the park later added Overlook Lodge, with 24 guest rooms.
The park has 30,000 square feet of meeting space, most of it at Bear Mountain Inn, which was completely renovated in 2012. The inn’s meeting space ranges from a 10-person boardroom to a 5,700-square-foot ballroom that can accommodate 300 people, Patton said.
The L-shaped ballroom has hardwood floors and a stone fireplace and offers views of the carousel pavilion, Hessian Lake and Bear Mountain. Downstairs, the 3,000-square-foot Appalachian Room and the 1,550-square-foot Adirondack Room also overlook the lake. The inn’s fine-dining restaurant, Restaurant 1915, is available for private events.
The Overlook’s 3,300-square-foot ballroom can hold up to 150 people. Some groups love to book the Overlook because “they can take over all the rooms, and it’s kind of like they have their own hotel,” Patton said. Between Bear Mountain Inn and the Overlook Lodge is the Cliff House, a stand-alone 1,600-square-foot building that can host events for up to 80 people.
In addition to hiking the park’s popular trails, groups can walk to the nearby Trailside Museums and Zoo or, during the summer, rent boats at the lake.
www.visitbearmountain.com
