The Turner Camps: A new website for a hundred-year-old cottage colony
Eight summer cottages on 150 feet of Fourth Lake shoreline in Old Forge, run by the same family for more than a century. Guests book by phone and many come back every year. The website needed to do the same job the family does on the phone: show the place, answer the questions, and make it easy to ask about a week.
Where they started
The old site listed the cottages but didn't show them well, and it had grown a few things it didn't need: sign-in pages, a favorites feature, testimonials that weren't real. Guests would call to ask the questions the site should have answered: how many does Hemlock sleep, is there a dock, are pets allowed, how far is the trailhead.
The family had one firm rule. No online booking, at least for now. Reservations happen in a conversation, and the deposit is a check. The site had to respect that instead of fighting it.
What we built
A complete redesign around the lake and the cottages. Each of the nine cottages has its own page with a photo gallery, sleeping capacity, what's in the kitchen, and an inquiry form that emails the family directly with the dates and party size filled in. A cottages page with filters, an about page that tells the hundred-year story, and a contact page with a map, directions, and the FAQ that used to live in phone calls.
Everything that wasn't true or wasn't needed came out. A hundred photos were resized so the pages load fast on a phone at the lake. Online booking is designed into the structure so it can be switched on later without rebuilding, but nothing on the site pretends to take a reservation.
What it changes day to day
Inquiries arrive as an email with the cottage, the week and the number of guests already filled in, so the first phone call starts halfway through. The questions that used to eat up the call are on the page. And a family business with a century behind it has a website that looks like it.
Run cabins, a campground, or a small inn?
Whether you take bookings by phone or want them online, the site should show the place properly and bring you the right questions. I'd be happy to build a free mockup for yours.