Pleasant Rowland created a business worth $700 million by using dolls to teach young girls about American history. Now she’s using some of that money to restore her picturesque college town to some of its former glory.
The founder of the American Girl doll brand has been quietly renovating the village of Aurora in upstate New York, restoring five hotels to reflect the eras in which they were built. She’s making the town a destination for city dwellers seeking a pristine Americana escape.
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Rowland started renovating Aurora in the 1990s when she found that the town where she went to Wells College had fallen on hard times. She has spruced up Main Street by burying the telephone wires, fixing the sidewalks, and planting elm trees. But her passion is backing the luxury hospitality industry with the inn, most recently opening a spa this summer.
“It seemed to me then that if God’s glory was expressed in the natural beauty of Aurora, man’s glory was expressed in its handsome old buildings, the living legacy of a gracious past, a place of gentility, rare in the world as I had come to know it,” Rowland said at the 2003 opening of one of the inns. “Aurora was a very special place, indeed — a treasure to protect.”
The historic inn, along with four stately homes built in the 18th and early 19th centuries, echoes the aesthetics of the American Girl doll line, with bright colors and attention to historical detail. The new spa incorporates an Eastern wellness program, with treatments costing hundreds of dollars.
Though many of the town’s 700-plus residents appreciate the revitalized economy, tensions have flared now and again throughout the years. A 2007 New York Times article described how one man took to parking his car, emblazoned with anti-Pleasant Rowland signs, in front of the oldest of the inns she restored. He and his allies felt the town was being gentrified and losing its local appeal in favor of affordable high-end luxury.
But supporters say the revitalized industry and everyday beauty benefit the town that inspired the setting of American Girl doll Samantha Parkington’s turn-of-the-century hometown.
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There may not be more additions planned to resort-like properties, but as Rowland said in a rare 2018 interview with Vogue, “Is any undertaking this worthy ever truly complete?”
Despite its historical roots, the American Girl doll line has received a modern face-lift in recent years. In 2017, the company announced the addition of a boy, Logan Everett, to its lineup of dolls, heralded as “kind of a big deal” and “a big step” on the Left for its effort toward inclusivity.
