While You’re Here

Stay a while.

New Hope and Lambertville are sister river towns — joined by the most-walked pedestrian bridge on the Delaware and the only fully intact 19th-century canal towpath in America. Here’s where we’d point you between bites — and where to stay if you want to make a weekend of it.

Travel + Leisure named New Hope its 2024 Best Small Arts + Culture Town. HGTV put Lambertville on its 50 Most Charming Small Towns in America list — one town per state. Park once on Main, take the bridge across when you're ready, and let the towns do what they've been doing for a century.

Walk the river

Park once. The river does the rest.

Public trail · Easton to Bristol

The Canal Towpath

The towpath sits a block from our front door — the only fully intact 19th-century canal towpath in America, 60 miles of crushed red stone tracing the river from Easton to Bristol. Walk a few minutes south and you're under the trees with the Delaware on one side and the canal on the other. Walk a few minutes north and you're at the New Hope–Lambertville bridge, the connective image between the two towns. Pennsylvania named it Trail of the Year in 2022. We call it the easiest reason to make a day of it.

Address: Trailhead at New Hope, PA — runs to Lambertville via the bridge

Theater + arts

A century-old building, still running.

Live theater · since 1939

Bucks County Playhouse

The Playhouse is the room itself first — a 1790 grist mill on the river that's been a working theater since 1939. Grace Kelly made her professional stage debut here in 1949. Robert Redford broke through in the 1963 pre-Broadway tryout of Barefoot in the Park (then titled Nobody Loves Me). The Wall Street Journal has called it one of the best regional theaters on the East Coast. Whatever's running the night you're in town is the right answer; the building does most of the work either way. A short walk north up Main from us.

Address: 70 S. Main Street, New Hope, PA

Shops + makers

Independent, all of them. Worth a slow loop.

Candle studio · DIY · BYOB

Wax 'n Scent

Moe and Ndabaningi Simmons opened Wax 'n Scent in 2020 — a Black- and veteran-owned candle studio on North Main where you can spend an hour making the thing you take home. You pick the wax, the scent, the dried flowers if you want them. They walk you through it. BYOB welcome, family-friendly, a short walk north of us up Main. Park once, light a candle, walk to lunch.

Address: 15 N. Main Street, New Hope, PA

Boutique · Bridge Street, Lambertville

Foxy Reds

Ali and Josh Linkov opened Foxy Reds on Bridge Street in 2018 — fragrance, candles, bath and body, jewelry, kids and home goods, the kind of finds that don't show up in chain stores. Right in the heart of downtown Lambertville. They run it on the instinct that a great find is worth stopping for, and most great finds don't make it to a website.

Address: 32 Bridge Street, Lambertville, NJ

Homeware mercantile · Lambertville

Lambert + Hope

Lambert + Hope opened on a side street off Lambertville's main drag — a homeware mercantile with a name that nods to both towns at once. The shelves run from tabletop and textiles to handmade candles, lighting, and pantry goods you don't find at a grocery store. They do interior design too, if a Sunday browse turns into something larger. Warm, knowledgeable, generous with their time. The kind of shop where you walk out with one small thing you didn't know you needed.

Address: 7 Coryell Street, Lambertville, NJ

Lifestyle shop · North Main, New Hope

the Meanings of Things

Emily Paige Paben — a New Hope native — and Sean Paben opened the Meanings of Things on North Main as a lifestyle shop, which is a loose category for what the place actually is: books, paper goods, wellness, home objects, the small accessories that turn into the gift you didn't know you needed. Curated for everyday rituals and traditions, in the shop's own words. Walk in for one thing, leave with three. Just up the block from Wax 'n Scent, a few minutes' walk from our front step.

Address: 19 N. Main Street, New Hope, PA

Stay over

Four places to stay in the river towns, from Lock & Lambert. The Lambertville house can be booked floor-by-floor or whole.

New Hope, PA

Main St Hideaway

2 bedrooms · sleeps 6 · Main Street, New Hope

The whole upper floor of 137 South Main — two bedrooms, three queen beds, sleeps six. Stained glass, dark walls, a wall of books, and the canal towpath at the back door. Walk to the river, the bridge, and everything Main Street holds.

See Main St Hideaway on Lock & Lambert ↗

Lambertville, NJ

The Garden Level

1 bedroom · sleeps 4 · single level · pets welcome

Across the bridge on Lambert Lane. One bedroom, single level, a fenced garden down to the Delaware and a fire pit by the water. Sleeps four. Dogs welcome, kids welcome, no stairs to manage.

See The Garden Level on Lock & Lambert ↗

Lambertville, NJ

The River Deck

2 bedrooms · sleeps 4 · deck over the Delaware

The upstairs of the same Lambert Lane house. Two bedrooms with their own baths — a king and a queen — and a wide deck set above the Delaware. The bridge is right downriver. Bring a coffee in the morning, watch the river go by.

See The River Deck on Lock & Lambert ↗

Lambertville, NJ · both floors

The Whole House on Lambert Lane

3 bedrooms · 3 baths · sleeps 8 · both floors together

Both floors when the trip is bigger. Three bedrooms, three baths, sleeps eight. Garden below, deck above, river just past the fence. Built for the wedding weekend, the family reunion, the couples trip that needs room to spread out.

See The Whole House on Lambert Lane on Lock & Lambert ↗

Booking still runs through Airbnb for now. Direct booking on lockandlambert.com follows soon. See all four at Lock & Lambert ↗

We curated everything but the food — for that, we’re partial.

And when it’s burger time, you know where to find us.

137 S. Main. New Hope, PA 18938.

See the Menu Visit

Built the room. Found the day. See where to eat.