This Historic Texas Lakefront Hotel Is a One-of-a-Kind Stay in Vintage Railcars

Somebody once told me that every kid who ever waved at a passing train secretly wanted to sleep in the caboose. I think they were right. I still slow down at railroad crossings and watch the last car roll by, and I have never once outgrown it.

Which is why The Antlers Inn in Kingsland has been living in my head for months. It is a 1901 railroad hotel on Lake LBJ where the rooms include three paint-bright cabooses, an antique wooden coach, and a train depot you can rent for the weekend.

Below, I will walk you through the railcars, the grounds, the eight acres of lake frontage, and the strange and wonderful history that put it all here. Then I will tell you how to book one for yourself.

Three Cabooses and a Cupola With a View

The cabooses are the reason you drive out here. There are three of them, painted red, yellow, and green, lined up on the grounds like a toy train somebody forgot to put away. They were built in 1976, found in Decatur, Illinois, and hauled to Kingsland by rail in 1996.

Each one is 254 square feet, which sounds small until you see how cleverly it is packed. There is a queen bed, two child-sized bunks that run five feet long, and a full bathroom with a stand-up shower.

Add a kitchenette with a fridge and microwave, a little living area, air conditioning, Wi-Fi, and coffee makings, and you have a real home on wheels. The inn says each caboose sleeps two adults and two small children comfortably.

The part I would fight my own family for is the cupola. That is the windowed box on the roof where the crew used to sit and watch the length of the train for trouble.

Climb up, and you get two seats and a view over the treetops and the water. Sunrise coffee up there is the whole point of the trip. Sunset, with the lake going copper, is a close second.

Guests seem to agree. One TripAdvisor reviewer wrote that they “were assigned the red caboose and were blown away!” Another said the loft in the middle of the car was the best place to relax and take in the views.

Kids, I am told, treat the bunks and the cupola like a fort. One mom described her son climbing up and down the cupola ladder all evening just to check on the woods and the sky.

Out front, every caboose has its own patio table, and you park right beside your car. Your train car, I mean. It is going to take a minute to get used to saying that.

The McKinley Coach, All Original Wood

If the cabooses are the playful option, the McKinley Coach is the romantic one. It is an antique wooden passenger car, and the interior wood is all original. You fall asleep looking at the same paneling that once rattled across the countryside.

Local writers date the car to the 1880s. Whatever its exact birthday, it is the oldest piece of rolling stock on the property, and it looks it in the best way.

Inside, it is 365 square feet with a king bed, two twins, a kitchenette, and a bath and a half. It sits across from the main inn with a view back toward the cabooses, so you can watch the whole little rail yard from your own patio table.

I like that the coach was left alone as much as possible. Plenty of places would have gutted it and dropped in a modern hotel room with a train-shaped shell. Here, the wood does the talking.

A Train Depot You Can Rent for the Weekend

The depot is the sleeper hit of the property. It was built in the 1880s by the railway company, and today it is a two-bedroom, two-bath cabin with a full kitchen and a wrap-around deck.

It sleeps eight, which makes it the natural pick for a family reunion or a group of friends who want to split one roof. Two king beds, a private patio, and a real kitchen mean nobody is eating cereal over a hotel sink.

Beyond the rail pieces, the 1901 main building holds six suites that run from 421 to 587 square feet. Each has its own personality.

One has a penny-tile bathroom, one has a rain shower, and one, my favorite on paper, has what the inn calls a “door to nowhere” and a cave shower. Several look out over the lake from the second floor.

There are also two cottages, Sunrise and Sunset, each with two bedrooms, two baths, and a porch with rockers. And there are smaller king-bed units called River Trail and Casita tucked toward the woods. Whatever your group looks like, something here fits it.

Eight Acres on Lake LBJ

The inn sits on eight acres where the Llano River meets the Colorado, right at the head of Lake LBJ. A walkway leads down to the water, and there is a boat pier where you can tie up for the day if you came by lake instead of by road.

Bring a fishing license, because the pier is a working one. Bass, catfish, and crappie all live in this stretch of water. If you would rather paddle than cast, the inn keeps non-motorized kayaks and life jackets on hand for guests.

The grounds themselves are the quiet surprise. Mature trees, garden beds, picnic tables, and outdoor grills are scattered across the property, and there is a children’s playscape near the railcars. One family wrote that their kids spent the weekend hunting the fairy gardens and the hidden trails.

Did you know? Deer wander through the property in the evenings, and at least one guest has spotted a gray fox at dusk. Keep the porch light low and your voice lower, and you may get the same show.

Breakfast in a Horror Movie House

Here is the twist nobody expects on a lakeside inn. The restaurant across the street, Hooper’s, is the actual Victorian farmhouse from the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The house was bought in 1998, taken apart in Round Rock, trucked to Kingsland, and rebuilt piece by piece.

For years it operated as the Grand Central Cafe. After director Tobe Hooper died in 2017, it was renamed in his honor. Today it serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Wednesday through Sunday, and horror fans travel from all over the world to eat pancakes where the movie family once sat.

I find that combination irresistible. A cheerful yellow caboose on one side of the street, the most famous scary house in Texas on the other, and a lake at the end of the walkway. Nowhere else in the state stacks its oddities quite like this.

If you want a proper dinner, Junction Prime is a steakhouse on the old depot grounds of the same complex. It serves prime steaks from local ranches, plus seafood, pasta, and scratch-made desserts. Reservations are recommended, though walk-ins are welcome.

A Brief History of the Railroad Hotel

The story starts with the trains. In 1892, the Austin and Northwestern Railroad built a bridge and a depot where the two rivers meet, and a town grew up around the junction. It took its name from Martin D. King, who had bought the land in 1877.

Captain Leitnaker, the head of the railroad, decided the spot deserved a resort. Construction began in 1900, and the Antlers Hotel opened on May 1, 1901.

It was a two-story wooden building with wide verandas and eleven bedrooms, each with its own lavatory, which was a genuine luxury at the time. There were gas lights, a telephone in the lobby, a barbershop, a game room, and hot baths on request.

The hotel courted wealthy guests from Austin and Houston, along with cattle buyers and traveling salesmen. Its first chef, C.F. Smith, cooked here from 1901 to 1905 while his wife baked the pastries. Across the street, a big pavilion hosted dances, oyster suppers, and revival meetings.

The name is a nod to the famous Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs, with a wink at Llano County’s deer-hunting tradition thrown in. A 1922 fire burned much of Kingsland, but the Antlers survived.

In 1923, Thomas H. Barrow bought it, and his family used it as a private retreat for the next seventy years. The hotel closed to the public, but the family’s summers kept the old building standing when so many railroad hotels were torn down.

Then, in November 1993, the Barrows sold to Barbara and Dennis Thomas of Austin. The Thomases spent more than two years restoring the place and reopened it to guests on September 1, 1996, with Anthony and Lori Mayfield as managers. The cabooses arrived that same year.

Recognition followed. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997 as part of the Austin and Northwestern Railroad Historic District, and it became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 2002.

In 2015, Rick Gregory and Drew Gerencer took over management, moved their coffee shop into the lobby, and opened the Grand Central Cafe. They bought the property outright in October 2017.

In November 2022, a new ownership group of Mike and Courtney Rhodes, Simon Madera, and Hobie Sasser stepped in. They added the Junction Prime steakhouse and have been refreshing the suites one at a time since.

Each set of hands kept the trains. That is the part I admire most. It would have been easy, at any point in that chain, to sell off a caboose and pour a slab for a parking lot. Nobody did.

Tips Before You Book

Pro tip: the cabooses are the first thing to sell out, especially on spring and fall weekends. Book weeks ahead if a specific color matters to you, and check the inn’s promotions page for weeknight deals.

Rates change with the season and the room, so I am not going to print a number that will be wrong by the time you read this. The inn’s website shows live pricing for every unit, from the cabooses to the depot.

Pack for the water. Swimsuits, water shoes, a fishing rod if you have one, and a small cooler for the picnic tables. The kitchenettes handle breakfast, but Kingsland is a small town, so bring anything specialty you cannot live without.

Longhorn Cavern State Park is roughly ten minutes away, and the rest of the Highland Lakes chain is an easy drive. Plan one lake day and one cave day, and you will have used the trip well.

How to Get There

Where: The Antlers Inn, 1001 King Court, Kingsland, TX 78639

Kingsland sits just off RR 1431 in Llano County, a little over an hour northwest of Austin and about 90 minutes from San Antonio. The inn is a two-minute walk from the lake and about a minute from what passes for downtown. Call (325) 388-4411 with questions.

Pull in, find your caboose, climb the ladder to the cupola, and watch the light go down over Lake LBJ. Then come tell me which color you picked. I already know mine is the red one.

Featured image: @ The Antlers Inn