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The American Club design style is a rich mélange of late 19th and early 20th century European and American Tudor revival, with arts and crafts era décor complemented by the contemporary chic aesthetic of the Kohler brand family. An eclectic yet definitively elegant design balance is achieved through the juxtaposition of beautiful oak woodwork, stained glass and original decorative Kohler antiques against more modern Baker and McGuire furnishings, Ann Sacks tile work, and, of course, Kohler bathroom fixtures. Elements of a bygone era such as hand-woven tapestries, immigrant portraits and citizenship papers are elevated to artwork status in homage to the American Club’s origins. Once a taproom for workers, the Horse & Plow is adorned with vintage saddles and farm tools, while the Immigrant Restaurant interior pays tribute to old-world Europe with authentic ornamentation, including pewter candlesticks, fine antique porcelain and framed etchings. You won’t find another Four-Star hotel quite like The American Club.

The American Club’s Suites are extremely well-appointed, ranging from 492 square feet to the ultimate Eau de Vie Suite’s 782 square feet. The rooms are also outfitted with multiple televisions, separate seating areas and king-sized beds. Other perks include a refreshment center and wet bar. As expected in The American Club, Kohler sister companies Baker and McGuire provide the furniture, while Kohler provides the inviting whirlpool tubs. Many of the suites also feature fireplaces, perfect for warming up after winter sports, as well as separate double showers.

With five on-site dining options, The American Club has no shortage of tasty, interesting treats. These are five of our favorites:

1) The Wisconsin artisanal cheese plate, available at both the Immigrant Restaurant and the Winery Bar, offers a choice of more than 40 craft cheeses. Come on, you can’t go to Wisconsin without having cheese — it’s a must.

2) While the Horse and Plow’s beer list is impressive, the Jigger Ale is a standout. Custom brewed for the American Club’s sister property in St. Andrews, Scotland, there’s only one other place on earth where you’ll find it. And it’s delicious to boot.

3) Chef Matthew Bauer’s dual knack for gathering the highest quality artisanal ingredients and deftly melding unusual flavor combinations is showcased in the ancho chile and coffee-braised beef short ribs, his signature dish.

4) The Wisconsin Room’s Friday night seafood buffet offers a feast of seafood-related delights. Go tropical with Hawaiian barbecued grilled mahi-mahi or grab some garlic seared scallops hot out of the pan at the chef’s station, or choose from the dizzying array of other salad, seafood, meat and dessert options.

5) Ask your server at the Immigrant Restaurant for dessert advice and chances are you’ll end up the hazelnut mousseline crunch tower. With its butter ice cream and sweet, salty tuile cookie, the restaurant’s signature dessert is a can’t-miss finish to any meal.

As a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star hotel, The American Club offers up more top-of-the-line amenities than you’ll likely have time to schedule. The five best:
 
1. World-class golf. Both The American Club’s renowned Whistling Straits Golf Course, which hosted the 2010 PGA Tournament, and its Blackwolf Run course attract serious golfers to their beautiful Wisconsin settings. Whistling Straits, an Alice and Pete Dye-designed course, features the grass-and-dune Irish course, as well as the Straits, which hugs Lake Michigan from a bluff in the style of the historic Scottish and Irish links. Blackwolf Run, also designed by Pete Dye, is located in a lush river basin and surrounded by forestry.
 
2. Kohler Waters Spa. Wisconsin’s only Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star spa, Kohler Waters Spa attracts spa-goers year-round with its signature Kohler water treatments as well as its inviting mosaic-tiled swimming pool and whirlpools and glass-enclosed rooftop lounge.
 
3. The Immigrant Restaurant. Chef Matthew Bauer prepares mouthwatering seasonal dishes made with locally sourced artisanal ingredients at the Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star restaurant. The wine list is also impressive, featuring a number of hard-to-find favorites. 
 
4. Sports Core. Every guest at The American Club has free access to the Kohler resort’s health club — and this is no run of the mill gym. Sports Core includes a man-made beach, an outdoor whirlpool alongside a fireplace, a pool for doing laps, family pool, tennis and racquetball courts, and workout equipment in the fitness center.
 
5. Meeting spaces. Dozens of meeting spaces are available throughout the resort — at Sports Core, Whistling Straits Golf Course, Blackwolf Run and Inn on Woodlake — offering business travelers easy access to amenities like golf courses, pools, fishing spots and the spa. Bottom line: You don’t have to sit inside a frigid air-conditioned room all day.

The American Club is outfitted with no fewer than five restaurants on property. The resort’s showcase restaurant is the Immigrant Restaurant, which offers fine dining with an emphasis on local and artisanal ingredient under the direction of chef Matthew Bauer.

The casual, family-friendly Horse & Plow tavern offers pub fare with a notable beer list. Meanwhile, in the Five-Star hotel’s courtyard, the Greenhouse Cage offers light lunch, coffee, snacks and housemade ice cream. The Wisconsin Room, open for breakfast and dinner, is additionally known for its Friday night seafood buffet and extravagant Sunday brunch.

A few minutes away via the resort’s free shuttle is Cucina, serving fine Italian specialties at the Shops at Woodlake. As an American Club guest, you can buy a guest pass to dine in the members-only River Wildlife Lodge, while the Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run golf courses offer their own dining options. You’ll probably need a few days to explore all the food options at The American Club; and even when you do, you’ll likely need to go back to try all the different delicious options.

The guest rooms at The American Club are outfitted with Kohler-related products through and through — Baker furniture, Ann Sacks tile, Kohler fixtures — and the hotel’s bath products are no exception. Each room’s bathroom comes stocked with Kohler-designed signature bath products, which another company manufactures on its behalf. In the shower, you’ll find the same shampoo and conditioner featured in the locker rooms at the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Kohler Waters Spa. Other little bath goodies you’ll want to stash in your overnight bag are a soothing cucumber facial bar, a refreshing body bar, shower gel and moisturizer. 

The construction of The American Club predates the era of porches, patios and terraces. The Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star hotel was built in 1919 as pragmatic dormitory-style lodging for the Kohler Company’s immigrant workers. In 1978, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, which prohibits architectural renovations and additions to its original exterior façade. One of the presidential suites has a step-out balcony for a breath of fresh air, but it doesn’t provide enough room for seating. On the plus side, the heart of The American Club is a stunning courtyard filled with native Wisconsin vegetation, a gazebo, fountain and an ornate stained-glass antique solarium from Lancashire, England, that was converted into the Greenhouse cafe.

An iterative room renovation project is under way at The American Club. Commencing in 2010, the first phase of updates has been completed to 109 rooms in the east, north and center wings of the hotel. During the fall of 2011, the west wing started renovations. The projected date for completion of the third as well as the fourth and final phase is slated for the summer of 2012. Updates of The American Club include lavish new furnishings from Baker, refinished antique décor and streamlined arrangement of the media and mini-bar area. A notable technological addition to each room at the Five-Star hotel is a connectivity panel adjacent to the flat-screen TV that allows you to plug in your laptops, tablets, and iPods to see photos, play videos and hear music through the television. Even though it’s steeped in history, The American Club does a great job in keeping up with the times to offer you new technologies that make every stay that much better.

Renovated rooms at The American Club have been outfitted with a connectivity panel through which you can charge devices like MP3 players and laptops, as well as project videos and photos onto the flat-screen television for better visibility and clarity. Even more impressive in terms of technology is the state-of-the-art Kohler shower experience in each of The American Club’s guestrooms. Deluxe rooms and above include a separate whirlpool bathtub and a performance shower experience with two showerheads along the shower wall, as well as overhead. The Superior tier rooms have a “tea for two” spa whirlpool with chromatherapy lights, while the Heritage rooms have a waterscape whirlpool with 10 body massage jets. The highly romantic Eau de Vie suite also boasts a two-person, seven-foot soaking tub, accented by chromatherapy lighting. When you think of Kohler, you probably think of faucets and fixtures — and you’d be right. But at The American Club, that translates to innovative technology, and bathroom and shower experiences you won’t find anywhere else.

Because The American Club is part of the National Registry of Historic Places, you won’t find a swimming pool on the property itself. However, you’ll receive complimentary access to the Kohler Sports Core Health & Racquet Club with a family swimming pool, adult lap pool, indoor and outdoor whirlpools, and beach access to Wood Lake. Adjacent to the American Club is the Kohler Waters Spa, where you can pay a fee for access to a coed pool with a waterfall and an indoor rooftop whirlpool, along with separate hot tubs and cold plunge pools in the male and female locker rooms — of course, the better option is to just book a treatment at the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star spa and enjoy the pool as well. Sports Core is less than a five-minute drive with the complimentary hotel shuttle, while the Kohler Waters Spa is just across the street from The American Club and reachable via underground tunnel during the colder months. How’s that for easy access?

The American Club doesn’t have a pool on-site, but there are several nearby that offer an assortment of amenities. Guest have complimentary access to the Sports Core fitness facility, where you can dive into an adults-only indoor lap pool. Other indoor features include a family swimming pool, whirlpool and coed sauna. The Sports Core’s outdoor whirlpool sits beside a cozy fireplace that adds ambience to an evening soak. The property also has its very own man-made beach dotted with lounge chairs, and an offset pier with tables for an al fresco lunch or an intimate conversation. You can also take a quick swim in Wood Lake, which comes with a diving raft.
 
The Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Kohler Waters Spa has a relaxation pool that’s nice for a refreshing little soak. The pool has a waterfall and is surrounded by chaise lounge chairs for reading or napping. Within each respective locker room area, spa guests also have access to a steam room with a cold rain shower, dry sauna, whirlpool and cold plunge pool, as well as chairs for relaxing with a wide array of magazines. The top floor of the spa boasts a lovely sunlit glass-enclosed rooftop deck with a whirlpool, warm fireplace and lounge area. 

You can expect more than a simple traditional mint on the nightstand or pillow, as The American Club offers a more decadent sweet, with freshly baked oatmeal chocolate chip and flourless peanut butter cookies as a signature component of its turndown service. The housekeeping staff also tidies up the room, folds your clothing, provides ice for evening refreshments, dims the lighting for ambience and places plush hotel slippers beside the bed. The television remote is also situated for easy access, while the TV is powered on and programmed to greet you with the tranquil sights and sounds of video footage from the Kohler Waters Spa. Expect attentive, original service during turndown at The American Club — just as you would from any other service at the Five-Star hotel.

No fees are added to the guestrooms at The American Club, other than taxes. However, there are a few amenities and services here that will cost some extra cash, such as laundry services.

Between its historic significance as a planned community, its pastoral Wisconsin setting and its association with bath design innovators Kohler, The American Club proves vastly different from any other Five-Star hotel in the world. Only its sister property in St. Andrews, Scotland, can contend. Here’s why:

1. It’s in Wisconsin. Luxury properties are not easy to come by in the Midwest, let alone Wisconsin. The American Club’s location, one hour north of Milwaukee and two and a half hours north of Chicago, makes it easily accessible, while still offering a tranquil pastoral getaway — complete with hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, and of course, world-class golf at the resort’s Whistling Straits course.

2.The town of Kohler has botanical garden status — bet you didn’t know it was possible for a factory town to be a botanical garden. The American Club is one of the only hotels in the nation to receive botanical garden status, which the entire town of Kohler earned in 2004. Enter The American Club’s lush courtyard with its beautiful stained glass Greenhouse Café and bubbling fountains and you’ll discover plants designated with markers that correspond with a free audio tour; handsets are available at the front desk. Also note the beautiful red and rich pink hollyhock flowers blooming around the property: The Kohler daughters planted these decades ago and they’re now infused into some of Kohler Waters Spa’s signature products.

3. It has a rich history — and we mean really rich. Housed in former Kohler worker housing, The American Club hotel nods to its rich history at every turn. Immigration and industrialism are the recurring themes: While tours are available at the factory across the street, the Kohler Design Center showcases the creativity and always-impressive designs the company has developed over the years. In the guest rooms, portraits of Wisconsin immigrants with short bios adorn the walls, while the Immigrant Restaurant pays homage to early Kohler workers with six rooms designed to reflect their European homelands.

4. Kohler plumbing abounds. When it comes to plumbing, even the most impressive luxury hotels become suddenly unremarkable. Not so at The American Club, thanks to the property being a part of Kohler’s bath empire. As the room price points increase, the fixtures become increasingly high-end — and high-tech — but even many of the lower-tier rooms feature covet-worthy tile and massage-jet showerheads.

5. World-class amenities such as The American Club’s renowned Whistling Straits Golf Course, which hosted the 2010 PGA Tournament, and its Kohler Waters Spa, Wisconsin’s only Five-Star spa, also set the resort apart from other luxury properties. A destination in its own right, the Alice and Pete Dye-designed Whistling Straits Golf Course features the grass-and-dune Irish course, as well as the Straits, which hugs Lake Michigan from a bluff in the style of the historic Scottish and Irish links. Meanwhile, the Kohler Waters Spa has a reputation nationally for its innovative water treatments and therapeutic custom-built showers.

You won’t need a car, a cab or even a limo during your stay at The American Club, thanks to the resort’s free shuttle service. The mini buses zip guests around all of Kohler’s main attractions — The American Club, the Kohler Waters Spa, the Carriage Inn, the Inn on Wood Lake, the Shops at Woodlake, Sports Core and the Kohler Design Center — at regular intervals and on-demand. For Whistling Straits Golf Course, shuttles depart from in front of The American Club and Inn on Woodlake at the top of every hour from 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. daily, returning to both hotels at the bottom of every hour. So while you might have to drive a little out of the way to get to the resort, you can keep the car in park for the duration of your stay at the Five-Star American Club.

As a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star hotel, The American Club offers up more top-of-the-line amenities than you’ll likely have time to schedule. The five best:
 
1. World-class golf. Both The American Club’s renowned Whistling Straits Golf Course, which hosted the 2010 PGA Tournament, and its Blackwolf Run course attract serious golfers to their beautiful Wisconsin settings. Whistling Straits, an Alice and Pete Dye-designed course, features the grass-and-dune Irish course, as well as the Straits, which hugs Lake Michigan from a bluff in the style of the historic Scottish and Irish links. Blackwolf Run, also designed by Pete Dye, is located in a lush river basin and surrounded by forestry.
 
2. Kohler Waters Spa. Wisconsin’s only Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star spa, Kohler Waters Spa attracts spa-goers year-round with its signature Kohler water treatments as well as its inviting mosaic-tiled swimming pool and whirlpools and glass-enclosed rooftop lounge.
 
3. The Immigrant Restaurant. Chef Matthew Bauer prepares mouthwatering seasonal dishes made with locally sourced artisanal ingredients at the Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star restaurant. The wine list is also impressive, featuring a number of hard-to-find favorites. 
 
4. Sports Core. Every guest at The American Club has free access to the Kohler resort’s health club — and this is no run of the mill gym. Sports Core includes a man-made beach, an outdoor whirlpool alongside a fireplace, a pool for doing laps, family pool, tennis and racquetball courts, and workout equipment in the fitness center.
 
5. Meeting spaces. Dozens of meeting spaces are available throughout the resort — at Sports Core, Whistling Straits Golf Course, Blackwolf Run and Inn on Woodlake — offering business travelers easy access to amenities like golf courses, pools, fishing spots and the spa. Bottom line: You don’t have to sit inside a frigid air-conditioned room all day.

The historic American Club luxury hotel does not allow pets, but the resort’s more contemporary Kohler property, Inn on Woodlake, recently became dog friendly. Specifically, five rooms now allow canines, so reservations must be made well in advance to ensure availability. A $75 dog surcharge will be added to your bill, and certain restrictions apply. For example, dogs must be under 70 pounds, crated when they’re in the room alone and kept out of the inn’s public areas. Also, only two dogs are allowed per room and owners must clean up after their animals at all times. Once you get settled, you and your pup will want explore the nearby walking trails — the Inn on Woodlake provides a map of recommended paths, as well as a list of local pet supply shops, dog walker services and veterinarians.

The American Club is outfitted with no fewer than five restaurants on property. The resort’s showcase restaurant is the Immigrant Restaurant, which offers fine dining with an emphasis on local and artisanal ingredient under the direction of chef Matthew Bauer.

The casual, family-friendly Horse & Plow tavern offers pub fare with a notable beer list. Meanwhile, in the Five-Star hotel’s courtyard, the Greenhouse Cage offers light lunch, coffee, snacks and housemade ice cream. The Wisconsin Room, open for breakfast and dinner, is additionally known for its Friday night seafood buffet and extravagant Sunday brunch.

A few minutes away via the resort’s free shuttle is Cucina, serving fine Italian specialties at the Shops at Woodlake. As an American Club guest, you can buy a guest pass to dine in the members-only River Wildlife Lodge, while the Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run golf courses offer their own dining options. You’ll probably need a few days to explore all the food options at The American Club; and even when you do, you’ll likely need to go back to try all the different delicious options.

Both The American Club and Kohler Sports Core and Health Club offer babysitting services. For The American Club, a concierge will arrange to have a babysitter from the hotel’s list of approved childcare contacts come to your room to mind children of any age. The sitters, who are almost all CPR-trained, are independent contractors who will expect their fees - $12 per hour for one child, $15 for two or three - in cash.

Babysitting services are also available during certain hours at Sports Core. The services at Kids Core, the health club’s on-site drop-off play area, are designed to allow parents to work out, visit the Kohler Waters Spa or take classes at Yoga on the Lake. Just ask the concierge at the Four-Star hotel for more information.

Fun activities for kids are in somewhat short supply on The American Club hotel’s immediate grounds, but if you’re willing to explore the possibilities across the resort, some interesting sports and rec options will certainly present themselves. You should check with the front desk at the Four-Star hotel about rentals or to arrange outings for snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, ice-skating, biking or sledding. The Kohler Sports Core Health Club, about a half a mile away, offers year-round fun, with an indoor family pool and tennis courts, plus a manmade beach for the warmer months. At the resort’s River Wildlife private reserve, the range of outdoor activities includes canoeing along the Sheboygan River and, for kids 12 and up, horseback riding. For girls ages 8 to 15, the Kohler Waters Spa offers a special Mom and Me Nails package. Babysitting is also available, if you’ve brought the kids along and just need to get away for an intimate dinner or spa treatment during your stay at The American Club.

Only available Sundays, the brunch at the American Club’s Wisconsin Room is worth planning your weekend around. Offerings span from savory to sweet, with fresh house-made pastries, including the Wisconsin specialty fruit kringle; smoked salmon; poached eggs Benedict; and a crème brûlée French toast — just to name a few. A chef’s carving station and omelet station make this a feast to remember. The Wisconsin Room is also open for breakfast daily. Meanwhile, if you’re a guest of the Carriage House, you’ll receive a complimentary continental breakfast. Breakfast is often called the most important meal of the day — and even if you sleep in late on Sundays, you’ll still be able to get the all-important food you crave at The American Club.

Nightlife in the town of Kohler can be a bit sleepy, but fortunately, you have three in-house bars to choose from at the American Club. On the finer side is the Winery Bar, a Euro-style wine cellar with a mind-boggling wine list and impressive cheese flight selections. The dignified Library Bar transforms the hotel’s library lounge into a full-service bar with martinis, signature drinks and appetizers, all served to the tune of live piano music on Fridays and Saturdays. Lastly, the Horse and Plow, which originally served as the tap room for Kohler company workers, features over 100 bottled beers and 12 craft beers on tap, including Jigger ale, a brew exclusive to The American Club.

The American Club’s Suites are extremely well-appointed, ranging from 492 square feet to the ultimate Eau de Vie Suite’s 782 square feet. The rooms are also outfitted with multiple televisions, separate seating areas and king-sized beds. Other perks include a refreshment center and wet bar. As expected in The American Club, Kohler sister companies Baker and McGuire provide the furniture, while Kohler provides the inviting whirlpool tubs. Many of the suites also feature fireplaces, perfect for warming up after winter sports, as well as separate double showers.

Every tier of room at The American Club offers cut-above bedding. From the lowest price point up, guests are treated to goose-down pillows and comforters, and Simmons Felicity mattresses with pocketed coils that eliminate movement by conforming to the body. Sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers are made by Frette, and they feature sateen 310-thread-count jacquard woven fabric manufactured from Italian-milled 100 percent Egyptian combed cotton fibers. The beds themselves are designed by Baker or McGuire. Standard rooms feature one king- or two double-sized beds. Deluxe, Superior and Heritage rooms house one king- or two queen-sized beds. Suites have one king-sized bed.

With five on-site dining options, The American Club has no shortage of tasty, interesting treats. These are five of our favorites:

1) The Wisconsin artisanal cheese plate, available at both the Immigrant Restaurant and the Winery Bar, offers a choice of more than 40 craft cheeses. Come on, you can’t go to Wisconsin without having cheese — it’s a must.

2) While the Horse and Plow’s beer list is impressive, the Jigger Ale is a standout. Custom brewed for the American Club’s sister property in St. Andrews, Scotland, there’s only one other place on earth where you’ll find it. And it’s delicious to boot.

3) Chef Matthew Bauer’s dual knack for gathering the highest quality artisanal ingredients and deftly melding unusual flavor combinations is showcased in the ancho chile and coffee-braised beef short ribs, his signature dish.

4) The Wisconsin Room’s Friday night seafood buffet offers a feast of seafood-related delights. Go tropical with Hawaiian barbecued grilled mahi-mahi or grab some garlic seared scallops hot out of the pan at the chef’s station, or choose from the dizzying array of other salad, seafood, meat and dessert options.

5) Ask your server at the Immigrant Restaurant for dessert advice and chances are you’ll end up the hazelnut mousseline crunch tower. With its butter ice cream and sweet, salty tuile cookie, the restaurant’s signature dessert is a can’t-miss finish to any meal.

An iterative room renovation project is under way at The American Club. Commencing in 2010, the first phase of updates has been completed to 109 rooms in the east, north and center wings of the hotel. During the fall of 2011, the west wing started renovations. The projected date for completion of the third as well as the fourth and final phase is slated for the summer of 2012. Updates of The American Club include lavish new furnishings from Baker, refinished antique décor and streamlined arrangement of the media and mini-bar area. A notable technological addition to each room at the Five-Star hotel is a connectivity panel adjacent to the flat-screen TV that allows you to plug in your laptops, tablets, and iPods to see photos, play videos and hear music through the television. Even though it’s steeped in history, The American Club does a great job in keeping up with the times to offer you new technologies that make every stay that much better.

Renovated rooms at The American Club have been outfitted with a connectivity panel through which you can charge devices like MP3 players and laptops, as well as project videos and photos onto the flat-screen television for better visibility and clarity. Even more impressive in terms of technology is the state-of-the-art Kohler shower experience in each of The American Club’s guestrooms. Deluxe rooms and above include a separate whirlpool bathtub and a performance shower experience with two showerheads along the shower wall, as well as overhead. The Superior tier rooms have a “tea for two” spa whirlpool with chromatherapy lights, while the Heritage rooms have a waterscape whirlpool with 10 body massage jets. The highly romantic Eau de Vie suite also boasts a two-person, seven-foot soaking tub, accented by chromatherapy lighting. When you think of Kohler, you probably think of faucets and fixtures — and you’d be right. But at The American Club, that translates to innovative technology, and bathroom and shower experiences you won’t find anywhere else.

The American Club has 185 guestrooms and 11 suites, although some rooms will be temporarily unavailable during early 2012 due to the ongoing four-phase renovation project. Just across the street from The American Club, there are 55 rooms at the Carriage House located in the Kohler Waters Spa building.

Traditional guestrooms vary from standard double and king accommodations to the higher echelon Deluxe, Superior and Heritage rooms. Roomier and more luxurious options at the Five-Star hotel include the Governor and Presidential suites. The uniquely romantic Eau de Vie suite was newly opened in the spring of 2011, and it can be reserved in combination with the Governor’s Suite, which is located one floor below. The American Club’s sister property, the Inn on Woodlake, has 121 rooms and is just a five-minute drive away; though, we highly recommend a stay at the main property for all the luxury and convenience it offers.

The American Club has LG flat-screen TVs in each guestroom and suite; as part of the ongoing renovation project, connectivity panels are being installed to allow you projection capabilities from your laptop, iPad and iPod to the television screen. Media technology and wet bars have been centralized and installed into traditional wooden armoires with hinged doors that can transform rooms into technology-free zones for optimum relaxation.

The exclusive spa-centric Eau de Vie suite at the Five-Star hotel has a larger flat-screen TV, which functions as a distinct and intuitive DTV II digital interface to control the room’s digital hydrotherapy system and custom-tailored shower experience. You might not expect such high-tech gadgets in a rustic location like Kohler, Wisconsin, but exceeding expectations is what The American Club is all about.

Because The American Club is part of the National Registry of Historic Places, you won’t find a swimming pool on the property itself. However, you’ll receive complimentary access to the Kohler Sports Core Health & Racquet Club with a family swimming pool, adult lap pool, indoor and outdoor whirlpools, and beach access to Wood Lake. Adjacent to the American Club is the Kohler Waters Spa, where you can pay a fee for access to a coed pool with a waterfall and an indoor rooftop whirlpool, along with separate hot tubs and cold plunge pools in the male and female locker rooms — of course, the better option is to just book a treatment at the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star spa and enjoy the pool as well. Sports Core is less than a five-minute drive with the complimentary hotel shuttle, while the Kohler Waters Spa is just across the street from The American Club and reachable via underground tunnel during the colder months. How’s that for easy access?

The American Club concierge is a veritable entertainment director for activities at and around the hotel property. Primary services include booking Kohler Waters Spa treatments and salon services, scheduling tee times at Whistling Straights or Blackwolf Run golf courses, and making dinner reservations at the Immigrant Restaurant or one of several other Kohler establishments. Depending on the season, the concierge at the Five-Star hotel can organize offsite excursions for fly-fishing daytrips or a visit to the Road America racetrack. Additional assistance is available for renting bicycles in warm weather, and cross-country skis, ice skates and sleds during the winter. If you’re in Kohler on business (perhaps you sell bathroom fixtures?), the concierge can also facilitate the shipment of FedEx deliveries. If you need it done, just ask the concierges at The American Club — that’s why they’re there.

The American Club design style is a rich mélange of late 19th and early 20th century European and American Tudor revival, with arts and crafts era décor complemented by the contemporary chic aesthetic of the Kohler brand family. An eclectic yet definitively elegant design balance is achieved through the juxtaposition of beautiful oak woodwork, stained glass and original decorative Kohler antiques against more modern Baker and McGuire furnishings, Ann Sacks tile work, and, of course, Kohler bathroom fixtures. Elements of a bygone era such as hand-woven tapestries, immigrant portraits and citizenship papers are elevated to artwork status in homage to the American Club’s origins. Once a taproom for workers, the Horse & Plow is adorned with vintage saddles and farm tools, while the Immigrant Restaurant interior pays tribute to old-world Europe with authentic ornamentation, including pewter candlesticks, fine antique porcelain and framed etchings. You won’t find another Four-Star hotel quite like The American Club.

You can expect more than a simple traditional mint on the nightstand or pillow, as The American Club offers a more decadent sweet, with freshly baked oatmeal chocolate chip and flourless peanut butter cookies as a signature component of its turndown service. The housekeeping staff also tidies up the room, folds your clothing, provides ice for evening refreshments, dims the lighting for ambience and places plush hotel slippers beside the bed. The television remote is also situated for easy access, while the TV is powered on and programmed to greet you with the tranquil sights and sounds of video footage from the Kohler Waters Spa. Expect attentive, original service during turndown at The American Club — just as you would from any other service at the Five-Star hotel.

You won’t need a car, a cab or even a limo during your stay at The American Club, thanks to the resort’s free shuttle service. The mini buses zip guests around all of Kohler’s main attractions — The American Club, the Kohler Waters Spa, the Carriage Inn, the Inn on Wood Lake, the Shops at Woodlake, Sports Core and the Kohler Design Center — at regular intervals and on-demand. For Whistling Straits Golf Course, shuttles depart from in front of The American Club and Inn on Woodlake at the top of every hour from 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. daily, returning to both hotels at the bottom of every hour. So while you might have to drive a little out of the way to get to the resort, you can keep the car in park for the duration of your stay at the Five-Star American Club.

No fees are added to the guestrooms at The American Club, other than taxes. However, there are a few amenities and services here that will cost some extra cash, such as laundry services.

The cancellation policy at The American Club is not kind to last-minute schedule changes; if you try to alter or cancel your reservation within seven days of your scheduled arrival time, you’ll be required to forfeit the deposit of one night’s room and tax. The deposit is initially charged on all rooms when you book your reservation. There aren’t any fees associated with reservations that are changed or cancelled eight or more days in advance of your scheduled arrival time — so if you’re going to change your mind about staying at the Five-Star hotel, we suggest you do it well in advance.

As a luxury Five-Star resort, The American Club offers room rates that generally fall into a higher price point with expected seasonal fluctuations. Additionally, rates will depend on the room, day of the week, availability and other factors. On the more value-minded side, standard rooms fluctuate between $202 and $410. Deluxe rooms, meanwhile, run $255 to $410; Carriage House rooms and suites run $268 to $931; and the Superior and Heritage rooms run $330 to $720. On the extreme end of luxury (even for The American Club), suites run $617 to $1,154, while the super luxe one-bedroom presidential suites — compete with amenities like separate living rooms and dining areas — cost between $885 and $1,464, depending on the season. Trumping them all in terms of luxury is the Eau de Vie suite, which features a fireplace, private elevator, two powder rooms, a wet bar, and state-of-the-art Kohler shower and bath fixtures, including the sõk bathtub with chromatherapy lights. You can call this suite home for about $1,500 a night. We think the rates are actually pretty reasonable at The American Club, considering it’s a Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star hotel set in a rustic location — something you don’t see every day.

Between its historic significance as a planned community, its pastoral Wisconsin setting and its association with bath design innovators Kohler, The American Club proves vastly different from any other Five-Star hotel in the world. Only its sister property in St. Andrews, Scotland, can contend. Here’s why:

1. It’s in Wisconsin. Luxury properties are not easy to come by in the Midwest, let alone Wisconsin. The American Club’s location, one hour north of Milwaukee and two and a half hours north of Chicago, makes it easily accessible, while still offering a tranquil pastoral getaway — complete with hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, and of course, world-class golf at the resort’s Whistling Straits course.

2.The town of Kohler has botanical garden status — bet you didn’t know it was possible for a factory town to be a botanical garden. The American Club is one of the only hotels in the nation to receive botanical garden status, which the entire town of Kohler earned in 2004. Enter The American Club’s lush courtyard with its beautiful stained glass Greenhouse Café and bubbling fountains and you’ll discover plants designated with markers that correspond with a free audio tour; handsets are available at the front desk. Also note the beautiful red and rich pink hollyhock flowers blooming around the property: The Kohler daughters planted these decades ago and they’re now infused into some of Kohler Waters Spa’s signature products.

3. It has a rich history — and we mean really rich. Housed in former Kohler worker housing, The American Club hotel nods to its rich history at every turn. Immigration and industrialism are the recurring themes: While tours are available at the factory across the street, the Kohler Design Center showcases the creativity and always-impressive designs the company has developed over the years. In the guest rooms, portraits of Wisconsin immigrants with short bios adorn the walls, while the Immigrant Restaurant pays homage to early Kohler workers with six rooms designed to reflect their European homelands.

4. Kohler plumbing abounds. When it comes to plumbing, even the most impressive luxury hotels become suddenly unremarkable. Not so at The American Club, thanks to the property being a part of Kohler’s bath empire. As the room price points increase, the fixtures become increasingly high-end — and high-tech — but even many of the lower-tier rooms feature covet-worthy tile and massage-jet showerheads.

5. World-class amenities such as The American Club’s renowned Whistling Straits Golf Course, which hosted the 2010 PGA Tournament, and its Kohler Waters Spa, Wisconsin’s only Five-Star spa, also set the resort apart from other luxury properties. A destination in its own right, the Alice and Pete Dye-designed Whistling Straits Golf Course features the grass-and-dune Irish course, as well as the Straits, which hugs Lake Michigan from a bluff in the style of the historic Scottish and Irish links. Meanwhile, the Kohler Waters Spa has a reputation nationally for its innovative water treatments and therapeutic custom-built showers.

The luxury American Club resort is the centerpiece of Kohler, Wis., a planned community that John Michael Kohler founded in 1912 to accommodate his expanding bath fixture business’ growing workforce. The historic Tudor-style American Club hotel, formerly worker housing, is just minutes from Interstate 43, west of Sheboygan — about a one-hour drive north from Milwaukee, a 2.5-hour drive from Chicago and just four miles from Lake Michigan. The American Club’s address at 419 Highland Drive, between Upper Road and Lower Falls Road, but you’ll know you’ve arrived when you spot the stately, red-brick American Club’s dramatically lit façade.