Name: Ruttger's Birchmont Lodge
Address: 7598 Bemidji Rd NE, Bemidji, Bemidji, Bemidji, 56601, United States of America
Rating: 7

24-hour reception

Elevator/lift

Smoking areas

Garden

General

Accessibility features

Wheelchair Accessible

Wheelchair access to restaurant

Accessibility

Laundry

Safe-deposit box

Dry-cleaning

Luggage storage

Services and amenities

Breakfast

Restaurant

Meals

Free Wi-Fi

Internet

Barbecue grill(s)

Hiking

Picnic area

Barbeque

Recreation

Free parking

Parking

Conference Hall

Business

Fitness facilities

Sports

Sauna

Beauty and wellness

Pets allowed

Pets

Temperature control for staff

Personal protection equipment for staff

Extra decontamination measures

Personal protection equipment for guests

Additional measures against COVID-19

Health and Safety Measures

Location

At the cottage

Bemidji Airport

Ruttger's Birchmont Lodge

Bemidji

I reserved a cottage about 7 feet from the lake.  The price seemed a little high for the room.  With large windows on the lake the view was amazing.  The cabin had a refrigerator but not a microwave.  I didn't have time to try the hot tub in the main lodge. The closest restaurant is the Town & Country golf course about 2 miles away.  

Good view of the lake

We ate dinner at the restaurant. the waitress was excellent and knowledgeable. The ambiance was lovely, overlooking Lake Bemidji. The food was excellent! I love eating in a restaurant that doesn't have muzak playing and is quiet. It's a fine dining atmosphere.


Excellent restaurant, friendly service

Beautiful location on the lake. Perfect little beach area for kids. Nice to sit outside and eat lunch.  The rooms are as rustic as the pictures show and would elevate the stay with some updates - shower heads, pillows, mattresses.  The lofted unit was a good layout for our family with two kids.  We were placed on the end next to the outdoor bar that stays open until midnight which was really rough.  A side window was stuck slightly open and hard to reach from spiral staircase so sound traveled in.  End unit the better option as the sound of your neighbor travels easily through the shared door (locked) so prefer one neighbor over two.  We didn’t sleep well either night due to outside noise (bar and people and music) and neighbors (not loud really but main bed is right next to shared door so you hear everything).  Maybe a cabin if we were to come again but pictures looked even more rustic online.  A lot of potential but do recommend room updates.

Beautiful lake location, very rustic rooms

My family stayed here for 3 nights during a peak weekend- the cost was $1050.  The room we were in was not worth half that price.  Our bedding had what seemed like poppy seeds in it, the floors weren't cleaned (garbage in multiple locations), the surfaces were very dusty, and the overall space had lots of damage (holes in the wall, broken futon as a sofa, furniture was very beat up and falling apart, etc.), one of our curtains was missing, etc.  It was such a disappointment to pay this amount for such a poor quality space.  

I felt like I was staying in a low-cost slumlord college campus apartment at a party school back in the 1990s, not staying in a $300+ per night lodge as a middle aged professional with my small children and that was really, really frustrating.

We reported the issues to management and they offered to clean our room again, but there weren't any other offers made to fix our stay.  No amount of extra cleaning could solve some of those issues.  Sadly, while the additional cleaning took care of some issues, one bed seemed to be made (without bedding changed) because it still had the poppy seed like stuff in it, and there was a tampon applicator still on the floor against a bathroom baseboard (meaning the bathroom floor wasn't cleaned when we arrived or after our room was cleaned again because of our complaint).  

We didn't feel comfortable using the kitchenette in our room because the whole room was so poorly cleaned and upkept, it's hard to say if anything in the kitchen was clean and ready to use.  We had trouble finding other lodging to move to because it was a weekend full of local events, and we strongly considered cancelling our plans and leaving entirely but stuck through it because the price was already so incredibly high.

It sounds like this lodge has recently changed owners.  Hopefully the new owners are able to put the time and resources into making the lodge align with the price they're charging, or that they re-evaluate how they describe and price the lodging.

I wish I'd left at check-in

The cabins are in desperate need of attention. Rusty screens and ancient furnishings of which none had been cleaned since the 90's. The grounds around the cabins need a lot of updating as well. Outside lights were held together w. masking tape.  Can't even believe how lame the morning buffet is.  Lack of fresh fruit or yogurt.  The amount of money they are charging for the cabins is obscene. 

Don't waste your money on these old,  dirty cabins.

Small room. No seating except hard desk chair or bed bench. All wood construction so joists squeak when someone walks in the room above. Very poor noise insulation from other rooms and hallway.  Bed was like a sponge. Breakfast room understaffed. Poor breakfast for the price of the room. Only warm items were the waffles and coffee and the waffles are too tough to eat. EXCELLENT dining room for supper.

Dated Lodge Rooms

Old cabins run down and dirty. Location great food is good. Nice place to rent boats. I stayed here 3 years ago and though they were updating the cabins but I was wrong. Nothing has been done to improve the condition of the cottages. I do not plan to come back.

I will leave a copy of the email I have sent to them. I also called asking to speak to a manager to let them how my experience could have been better. I have yet to hear any response. 

I just wanted to share my opinion of how my rental of a pontoon went.  I rented a pontoon last Sunday <a week ago>. It was about 300 dollars for all day. 
The positives: The front desk staff and young staff at the boathouse were terrific. They were friendly, courteous, and professional. Especially when I brought the boat back about 7:45 they were hustling to do multiple things and they obviously know what they doing. 

My disappointment is that I rented a pontoon for myself, my elderly father as well as my brother and his son to fish.  My father has loved fishing his whole life and rarely can get out anymore.   The depth finder did not work the majority of the time.   I did mention this to the young man at the boathouse about noon when I brought the boat in for a bit. He stated he would look at it.  I am not sure there was much he could do about it, however.  We did choose that particular pontoon for the ability to fish from it.

I went back later in the evening for a few more hours but it continued to not work most of the time. I checked the sensor at the back of the boat and it did look like there was at least one area that was exposed as far as the wires. I am not sure if that was the issue or not.
Not knowing the depth of Lake Bemidji led us to struggle to find spots to fish effectively. 
I am not asking for a full refund as we certainly enjoyed being on the lake during a fantastic day of weather.
I will leave it to your discretion to what you feel is fair in how to handle this.
I think the resort is fantastic and I hope you had a great 4th of July.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Rick Jackson

So much possibility, yet falls short

Several days after our son died my wife and I had been staying with our daughter a few miles away from Ruttgers and it was getting a little bit much so we decided to get away to Ruttgers for a few nights and actually get some peace well we planned his memorial.  We have stayed there several times and have really enjoyed ourselves. We ate dinner in the bar, had a couple drinks, then went up to our room.  It wasn't very long before we heard a pounding on the door.  My wife went to the door and this person Darcy was yelling at us that we had better not be smoking pot in there and that they could smell it in the hallway. My wife told her we weren't smoking anything in our room and she said we better not or there would be trouble.  Aftervshe left we sat there reeling from that for a while, and then about an hour later we had another banging on the door and it was two deputy sheriffs.  They said they had a report that somebody was smoking pot and they had to investigate so I said come on in the room and investigate and they did and they discovered we weren't smoking anything in our room. They were very nice and left. 
I went down to the front desk with a very puzzled look on my face I'm sure, and told them that we really were just trying to get some peace from all of the events of the last several days and driving out here from California to be with our daughter when she found out that her brother had died.  The person at the desk asked if we wanted to check out then of course it was now 10:30 at night and we had had a couple of drinks and I told her there was no way I was leaving because I don't ever drink and drive, which I never do. You know what else I never do - I never smoke anything in a hotel room. Period. 
I probably got three and a half hours maybe four of sleep that night. I got up the next morning and went down to the desk and spoke to Darcy and told her how appalled I was that this had happened to us.  She agreed to not charge us for our room and I also asked her for a deposit back that we had paid for our intended stay this coming August. I told her I told her I don't think we could ever stay there again she said she understood.
Well they did credit us far the room charge and gave us our deposit back but then I noticed a few days later there was a charge for $250 on my credit card so I called to ask what that was for and they said it was because we had been smoking in our room. I said it was proven by the Sheriff's that we weren't smoking in our room what are you talking about and then she gives this wild explanation about 6 employees, probably the ones that were smoking in there in the first place, verifying that there was pot smoke in our room. It was a heated conversation and now I think I just need to get over it and realize they ripped me off for $250 and had a hand in making an already miserable trip to Minnesota that much more miserable. I am going to try to rise above this and try to get some sleep and some peace and go grieve my son's death. Be careful if you stay here. You don't have to smoke anything but they'll sure find you guilty.

Tried to get some respite after our son died, but they sent the Sheriff's to our room.

A LOT of major renovations have been completed at this resort.  None more important the the rooftop bar they added looking over BEAUTIFUL Lake Bemidji.  Restaurant and Pirate's Cove have also seen a facelift.  
However, the cabins haven't been updated yet but that is what makes the place wonderful.  Small and quaint cabins along the shores of the lake allow to go back in time.
Service was impeccable.  Requests for more towels were answered VERY quickly.  Greeted by last name when I would enter the lodge.  Boathouse staff was tremendous getting our pontoon prepared for rental.

Ruttger's Birchmont Lodge

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