You can still sleep on 90-year-old hickory beds at this Kentucky teepee motel: According to reports

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It’s been standing since 1937

Cave City, Kentucky, has a motel where you check into a two-story concrete teepee and sleep on the original hickory bed frame from nearly 90 years ago. Historic Wigwam Village No. 2 lines up 15 of these teepees around a grassy field, with one massive central teepee towering over them all. It sits just a few miles from the longest cave system on Earth. The rooms are small, the bonfire runs nightly, and the whole place feels like a time machine you can actually spend the night in. Wikimedia Commons/Marion Post Wolcott

A California diner sparked the whole idea

Frank Redford saw a teepee-shaped diner in Long Beach, California, and couldn’t let it go. The Kentucky businessman came home and opened a teepee gas station and lunch counter in Horse Cave in 1933. Two years later, he added six sleeping teepees. By 1937, he built the bigger Village No. 2 in Cave City with 15 guest teepees and a 52-foot-tall central Big Wigwam. The name is technically wrong. The buildings look like Plains teepees, not wigwams. Nobody ever changed it. Wikimedia Commons/Ichabod

Only three of seven villages survived

Redford’s idea spread fast. Seven Wigwam Villages went up across the country, some built by Redford himself and others by entrepreneurs who bought his plans. Time and highways took most of them down. Today, only three remain: Cave City, Holbrook, Arizona, and Rialto, California. The Cave City location is the oldest of the survivors and the one that served as the blueprint for every village that followed. Shutterstock

The National Register recognized it in 1988

Redford patented his teepee design back in 1936, long before anyone thought roadside motels would become history worth saving. The Cave City village landed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, and the other two surviving locations eventually followed. All three now carry that recognition. You can walk the grounds and touch walls that have been standing since before World War II. Few pieces of early road-trip America are still this intact. Shutterstock

Original hickory bed frames fill every room

Step inside one of the teepees, and the first thing you notice is the hickory bed frame. It’s the same one guests slept on in the 1930s. Caned chairs, nightstands, and vanities from the original build line the curved walls.

The bathrooms have red-and-white tile that looks like it came out of a candy shop. Showers run hot, the rooms are small and cozy, and everything feels exactly as compact as it was designed to be. Flickr/Richard Elzey

No phones, just 1930s simplicity

You get two sizes here. The smaller teepees sleep two, roughly 20 feet across. The larger ones sleep four, about 25 feet in diameter, and work well for families. There are no in-room telephones, which strips away one more layer of the modern world. Window air conditioning keeps the summer heat manageable. The look stays true to 1937, and the quiet stays true to a time before notifications ran your evening. Shutterstock

Nightly bonfires bring strangers together

Every evening, weather permitting, the owners light a bonfire in the middle of the grounds. They hand out the roasting sticks, so you just need to bring the marshmallows and chocolate. Families with kids, couples on road trips, and solo travelers all end up in the same circle of chairs. Phones go down. Stories come out. Many guests say this is the part of the stay they remember most, and it costs you nothing but an hour of your night. Shutterstock

A retro playground and big grassy field

The 15 teepees circle a wide, open grassy field that gives the whole place room to breathe. Kids head straight for the retro playground, which has old-style equipment and a soccer goal with balls ready to go. A covered picnic and grilling area sits on the grounds for anyone who wants to cook. The pace here is slow on purpose. You sit, you eat outside, you let the evening stretch out without a schedule. Shutterstock

The owners treat it like proud parents

New owners have carefully restored the village in recent years, updating the teepees without stripping away what makes them original. Keith Stone, one of the owners, walks guests through the full history if you ask. He covers everything from Redford’s patent to the cultural story behind the design. Guests say the pride shows in every detail, from the clean rooms to the well-kept grounds. This is a place run by people who clearly love what they have. Shutterstock

Park your car right at your teepee door

The village sits along old U.S. Highway 31W, just a few miles off Interstate 65.

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That puts it roughly halfway between Louisville and Nashville, which makes it an easy weekend stop from either direction. Each teepee has its own paved parking spot right outside the door, so you unload and you’re home. No shuttle buses. No parking garages. Just pull up, grab your bag, and walk 10 feet to your concrete teepee. Shutterstock

Mammoth Cave is right down the road

You’re just minutes from Mammoth Cave National Park, home to the longest known cave system on the planet. More than 400 miles of underground passages have been mapped so far, and guided cave tours run daily for a fee. Above ground, the park covers over 50,000 acres with trails for hiking and biking, plus fishing and horseback riding. You can spend a full day underground and still have time for the bonfire back at camp. Flickr/Caveman Chuck

Few places let you sleep inside history

Teepee motels once lined America’s early highways. Most are gone now, torn down for gas stations and fast-food lots. The Cave City village is still here, still renting rooms in the same concrete teepees Frank Redford built in 1937. You sleep where travelers slept before the interstate system even existed. The beds are original. The walls are original. The whole experience puts you inside a piece of the American road trip that almost disappeared for good. Flickr/Richard Elzey

Visit Historic Wigwam Village No. 2 in Kentucky

You can book a teepee at 601 North Dixie Highway in Cave City, Kentucky. The village sits right off Interstate 65, so it’s an easy pull-off whether you’re heading north or south. Check the official website for current rates and availability, especially during summer months and weekends when teepees fill up fast. Pair your stay with a Mammoth Cave tour, and you’ve got a weekend that covers 400 million years of geology and 90 years of roadside Americana. This article was created with AI assistance and human editing. Read more from this brand:

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