One of the Country’s First Airport Hotels Reopens Tomorrow With a Ford Tri-motor Airplane Photo Booth Where You Can Take a Vintage Passport Picture

• The Dearborn Inn reopens in Michigan on March 19, 2025, as part of the Marriott Autograph Collection after a two-year renovation.
• The hotel has 135 guest rooms with four-poster walnut beds, Eames chairs, and Pantone blue tiles in the bathrooms.
• The property also features a 1930s phone-booth-turned-photo-booth where guests can take a vintage-style passport photo, and a cocktail bar with a horseshoe-shaped bar and design, inspired by the original Ford Tri-Motor airplane wing.

The Dearborn Inn—known as one of the first airport hotels in the country when it opened in 1931 across from the original Ford Airport—is back.

The Ford Motor Company’s Michigan hotel reopens tomorrow as a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel. It’s been closed for two years for a to-the-studs renovation by a team of ace hotel designers, including AvroKo (behind projects like Inn at Mattei’s Tavern, Auberge Resorts Collection, in central California).

The 135-room hotel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is definitely for the AV geeks. Dearborn Inn, Autograph Collection, will welcome back travelers with a photo booth where guests can take a “vintage-style passport photo” in a 1930s phone booth “that has been transformed to look like the historic Ford Tri-Motor airplane,” according to a release shared with Travel + Leisure.

At Four Vagabonds, the hotel’s cheeky-looking cocktail bar, “the art was inspired by a propeller and the design of the bar echoes the Tri-Motor airplane wing,” says Ted Ryan, heritage brand manager of Ford Motor Company, in an interview with T+L.

The inn preserves the Georgian style it opened with in the ’30s, when its impressive guest list included artist Norman Rockwell, President Ronald Reagan, and—in true aviation fashion—former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The AvroKo design has brought the hotel roaring into the Instagram age with patterned floors in the restaurant, Eames chairs in the rooms, and a stunning horseshoe-shaped bar. The goal was to stay true to the hotel’s original design, conceived by Henry Ford and his only son with wife Clara Jane Bryant Ford, Edsel.

“Edsel was extremely passionate about the black-and-white marble tile in the lobby, so that was carefully preserved, as well as the gold antique clock that is mounted above the corridor that leads to the elevators,” Jennifer Kolstad, global design and brand director at Ford Motor Company, tells T+L.

“The rooms are designed to feel both refined and inviting,” Kolstad continues. “Light curtains are contrasted with stately four-poster walnut beds, and we brought in Eames chairs to incorporate Michigan-made furniture. Every detail is intentional, with subtle nods to Ford’s legacy, like the Pantone blue tiles in the bathrooms.”

The hotel will have a farm-to-table restaurant, Clara’s, named for Henry Ford’s wife. This summer, the new Autograph Collection will debut five standalone homes on the hotel’s 23 acres.

 “We’ve had the opportunity at the Dearborn Inn to host some of the most innovative individuals of their time, and now, the property is ready to welcome that next generation of leaders and innovators—whether they are local to Dearborn or exploring the area for the first time,” says Joleisha Bradley, Dearborn Inn’s general manager. “With attractions like the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation just steps away and downtown Detroit nearby, there is plenty for travelers to discover.”

Rooms at Dearborn Inn, which reopens on March 19, 2025, will start from $350 a night, and you can book at marriott.com.