The Wake Robin Inn: A Celebration Destination
If you’re one of those people who’ve always dreamed of running a country inn, Michael Loftus & Shaffin Shariff would like to talk to you. Ten years ago, the two men (who were then a couple) moved from Chicago to Lakeville, CT, to overhaul the woebegone Lake Robin Inn, a one-time girl’s private school on eleven acres across the road from Lakeville Lake. Though Loftus had worked for Hilton for many years and they had done their due diligence, buying the 1899 Wake Robin was an act of faith. “It was the build-it-and-they-will-come philosophy,” says Shariff. “We had the idea of running a traditional New England Inn.”
But like so many starry-eyed innkeepers before them, they soon realized that the tourist market could be fickle and that bad weather brought cancellations during the all-important leaf-peeping and ski seasons. So they decided that the best way to keep their 38 bedrooms full was to turn the Wake Robin into what they call a “celebration destination.” Says Shariff: “We decided we would not be an inn for a romantic getaway.”
Instead, the Wake Robin caters to groups (both formally and informally), relying on the traffic from Lime Rock Park race track (“It’s more the drivers and crews than the fans who stay with us,” notes Loftus) as well as parents from the nearby Berkshire, Hotchkiss and Salisbury prep schools. They also do weddings (under a tent on the lawn or in their ballroom), family reunions and corporate retreats. “It’s especially nice for weddings because everyone staying here is a guest and at least 80 or so people don’t have to worry about drinking and driving,” says Shariff. They learned to accept that their inn itself was not the raison d’être for guests to visit but making them feel welcome and comfortable was paramount. “We’re not a four-star inn, but we get five-star ratings,” says Shariff.
Now, after ten years, they are ready to move on, and they have just put the inn on the market at $4,795,000. Is this a good time to sell with the nearby White Hart Inn and Troutbeck Inn & Conference Center also for sale? “Yes, we think we have a really successful formula that new owners can take over and improve upon if they want to,” says Shariff, who wants to spend more time with his two school-age sons whom he’s raising with his husband, Kevin Vetter.
Meanwhile, the inn is almost fully booked through the end of 2011, and they promise not to disappoint any brides or their employees by closing down. “A lot of innkeepers think it’s all about them but we know better,” says Shariff, who says they are willing to stay on as consultants to new owners. “We have been good stewards of the Wake Robin and we are ready to hand it over and make sure it is in good hands for many years to come.
Wake Robin Inn
106 Sharon Rd (Rte. 41), Lakeville, CT;860.435.2000
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 05/04/11 at 12:58 PM • Permalink
Whimsical, Winsome Winvian Now Cooks
By Kathryn Matthews
“Ninety-five percent of our guests never leave the property—until they head home,” says Maggie Smith (below), owner of Winvian, a private resort tucked amid the rolling Litchfield Hills in northwest Connecticut.
Famously discreet, Winvian reflects the spirit of its former owners—Winthrop Smith, a founding partner of Merrill Lynch, and his wife Vivian—who, in 1948, bought the 113-acre Morris, CT estate, which included the pre-revolutionary “Seth Bird House,” a well-appointed, three-story 1775 farmhouse. Combining their first names, they christened it Winvian, and when their son Win, Jr. inherited the property, he and his then-wife, Maggie, decided to expand the original farmhouse and add 18 cottages to the property. It was a six-year undertaking that, in the fall of 2006, begat “Winvian,” the high-end destination getaway. Although Win Jr. is no longer involved, Winvian remains a family-run affair with Maggie now its sole proprietor; daughter Heather is managing director, and son Win, III is sales and marketing director.
Like its sister property, The Pitcher Inn in Warren, Vermont, Winvian is a quirky, luxurious, boutique hotel to which no fewer than 15 architects have contributed. Little wonder one of the most popular activities at Winvian is checking out the whimsical, free-standing cottages that pepper the property. They range from 950 to 1,250 square-feet and each has a theme—Stone Cottage (right), Beaver Lodge, Industry, Helicopter. Some are relatively subdued—the “Artist’s Cottage,” a 1920s-style bungalow with vibrant yellow-and-chartreuse interior, is rich in decorative detail—stained glass windows, a ceramic shard-sculpted fireplace. Adjoining the living room is a sitting area, where a sketchbook and a blank French easel with watercolors and oil paints invite guests to express themselves. This is Winvian’s version of 
restraint.
Other cottages are more over-the-top—the two-level, “Treehouse Cottage” (left) is suspended between three trees 35 feet above the ground. A spiral staircase leads to a funky, modern interior with a bedroom, fireplace, Jacuzzi, walk-in steam shower, and fully-stocked wet bar.
In addition to ogling the cottages, there is plenty to do—a games room for pool, tabletop shuffleboard and foosball—and outdoor games, including croquet, badminton, horseshoes, bocce, and tennis—as well as a spa and indoor games, such as pool and foosball. Winvian borders the White Memorial Foundation, a 4,000-acre nature preserve with 35 miles of trails—ideal for hiking and biking in summer, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in winter—to which guests have free and direct access.
Another on-site diversion, introduced earlier this month, promises to further inspire guests’ tendency to stay put. In fact, the new Cooking School at Winvian is likely to also attract area residents to this Relais & Château property. Its focus: the fundamentals of classic French cooking. Think lobster bisque, an herb and spinach omelet, a warm lentil salad, coq au vin.
Located in the Gordon Brown House, a renovated barn, the 550-square-foot teaching kitchen is outfitted with spanking new Viking appliances. During a recent session, as a tomato fondue bubbled on the stove, executive chef Chris Eddy (right, rolling pasta) showed students how to hand crank freshly made pasta dough through an Imperia pasta machine and how to blanch basil. Classes are intimate—12 students, maximum—and geared toward couples and small groups. Three main programs are offered: a two-hour, hands-on class on weekends throughout the year; a three-day class (Thursday-Saturday) on select weeks; and an “intensive” program, held on six consecutive Wednesdays, twice a year (March-April and November-December). For all three, students have the option of coming for the day or staying overnight at Winvian, where rooms range from $400 to $800 per night (breakfast included).
In addition to the fundamentals of French cuisine, “I also want students to understand how to use seasonal and local ingredients as much as possible,” says Eddy, who arrived at Winvian in 2006 with a high French culinary pedigree. An alumnus of the French Culinary Institute, he has worked—as a sous chef—in the kitchens of Daniel Boulud (Daniel and Café Boulud in NYC and Palm Beach) and Alain Ducasse (Mix in Las Vegas). Under Eddy’s guidance, Winvian garnered a AAA Five Diamond Award last fall for its farm-to-table-inspired menu. The restaurant, which seats 40 - 50, includes a main dining room, private dining room, patio and terrace. It is open to the public, though it is recommended that reservations be made a week or two in advance. Eddy’s three-course prix fixe menu ($90 per person) showcases the best of the season: marinated green-and-white asaparagus and and proscuitto drizzled with 25-year-old balsamic, house-made squid-ink-and-saffron nochette, warm roasted pigeon, roasted local lamb chop with raita.
Eddy’s passion for food starts with the seed—not surprising for a chef who declares food activist Michael Pollan his “hero,” and who has become an advocate of sustainable, organic gardening practices. He also oversees Winvian’s garden, a three-quarter acre plot, planted with herbs and a range of common vegetables, including cabbage, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peas and carrots. From late spring through December, Eddy uses what’s harvested from the garden in his classes.
The new cooking school is a coup for Eddy, who says: “By exposing people through our restaurant or the cooking school to the food we do here, I hope to help them understand—and taste—the difference that sustainable, locally grown food makes on your plate—and for the planet.”
Winvian
155 Alain White Road, Morris, CT
860.567.9600
A la carte, from $650/night for two, including breakfast, plus tax and gratuities.
Inclusive, from $1,250 for two, including all meals, plus snacks, afternoon tea, cocktails and room service, plus tax and gratuities.
The Cooking School at Winvian
*Prices are per person and include aprons, knives, equipment, and recipes.
Classic Classes: $150
2-hour pasta or pastry class
Offered on weekends throughout the year
3-day class (15 hours instruction): $1,100 + tax
Overnight rooms (a la carte): $400 to $800 per night, excluding tax and service charge
Offered on select weeks during the year
6-week intensive program (48 hours instruction): $2,400 + tax
Overnight rooms (a la carte): $400 to $800 per night, excluding tax and service charge
Offered twice a year (April-May and November-December)
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 04/20/11 at 03:03 PM • Permalink
Act III for Ragamont House: Now a B&B and Chic Caterer
Finally, Pete Hathaway has figured out what his landmark mansion on Salisbury’s Main Street was destined to be: A party house. When Rural Intelligence checked in with Hathaway a little more than a year ago— A ‘Step-Down’ House in Salisbury That’s A Cut Above—he was turning Ragamont House, his one-time über-fancy antiques shop, into a plush halfway house for recovering addicts. He worked hard to fill the beds and provide a supportive atmosphere, but it was very draining. “I liked the men and I liked the work we were doing, but I did not like being on call 24/7,” he says. “It was a very big responsibility.”
Having gotten used to having strangers under his roof and not wanting to lose his gifted chef, Bruce Young, Hathaway hatched the idea of making his home not only a B&B but also a one-of-a-kind catering facility for small dinner parties, weddings, or large cocktail parties. And it happens to be ideally situated for a reception after a funeral at one of the two churches that are within walking distance of Ragamont, which is rambling but cozy. “This house swallows people,” he says. “It’s very easy to have 150 people here.”
Since it was originally decorated as Hathaway’s private residence, it is very homey in the grandest manner. The bedrooms are sumptuously and comfortably decorated. “I think the feeling you get is like staying in a great English country house,” says Hathaway, who used to visit such estates often when he worked for Sotheby’s. “Guests can have cocktails in the living room and read or watch TV by the fire in the library. We have it all running very smoothly. I get up early and buy the newspapers and put out the breakfast which includes homemade granola and homemade bagels” Homemade bagels? “Yes, that’s Bruce. He likes to make everything himself.” Bruce is Hathaway’s secret weapon—an unflappable chef who is as happy making gallons of chile as puff pastry canapes or lobster tails floating in aspic. “We can really do any sort of party,” says Hathaway, who is planning to have smaller dinners in the summer on his covered porch with its big fireplace and weddings under a marquee in the garden.
Amazingly, Hathaway finds it easy to watch guests drink wine and cocktails under his once alcohol-free roof. “I go to an AA meeting every morning,” he says. “I know I will never touch a drop again.” His innate ebullience makes him well-suited for his new role. “I’m like the butler here,” he says. “All my life I thought that would be the perfect job for me.”
Ragamont House Bed & Breakfast
8 Main Street, Salisbury, CT; 860-596-0555
Introductory room rates: $200 and $250, double occupancy.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/06/11 at 08:03 AM • Permalink
Kinderhook Farm: A Fantasy Vacation Destination
When she was five-years-old, Renee Iacone Clearman’s family planned to go to a farm for a vacation. “I was delirious!,” she recalls. “I packed all my clothes into grocery bags. Then my father got sick, so we couldn’t go.”
Decades passed. Then in 2001, Renee, an artist who shows at the John Davis Gallery in Hudson, and her husband Steve Clearman, a money manager, bought a country place in Ghent. “Just down the road, there was a beautiful 1200-acre farm. We learned that it might go on the market, so Steve began to think about how he could buy it.” The place had been neglected, so there were acres of overgrown brush, miles of broken fences, and buildings in various stages of decay. Clearly if steps weren’t taken promptly, the land would soon be irretrievably overgrown. According to Renee, “Steve wanted to preserve it as open space.”
The most efficient way to do that, of course, would be to keep on farming. So Steve called an old friend, lawyer-turned-farmer Lee Ranney, who, with his artist wife, Georgia, had been raising cattle in West Virginia. Steve asked the Ranneys to come up to Columbia County to take a look.
Soon, the Clearmans and the Ranneys were partners in Kinderhook Farm. Lee and Georgia moved into the 18th-century farmhouse on the property and took charge of the mending, planting, repairing, and acquiring livestock. “Our dream was to preserve the beauty of the open land by planting grasses, so we could eventually produce high-quality lamb and beef.”
Ten years hence, that dream has become a reality. Kinderhook Farm meats are highly regarded by top butchers and chefs, both locally and in New York City. In addition to the farm’s contribution to the beauty of the countryside, the property has also evolved into a multi-faceted community asset. The Clearmans and the Ranneys have offered their neighbors space on the property for a community garden, and the charming Kinderhook Farm Store is a popular source of top-notch eggs, chicken, lamb, and beef. Neighbors are welcome to hike through the pastures, and during summer, aspiring farmers stay on the property in the “intern house,” while serving paid internships. Parents bring their little ones to visit the chickens and to say hi to Ginny, the donkey, and her bff, Oreo, a barn cat.
All was thus running smoothly, when a year or two ago, it occurred to Renee that this idyllic, peaceable kingdom would be the perfect setting for the kind of farm-stay vacation she’d dreamed of so long ago.
This summer they will welcome their first guests. Perhaps it is because she has never actually gone on farm stay vacation or maybe its the fact that her dream had the better part of a lifetime to ferment; in any event, Renee Clearman’s version of a farm stay is, safe to say, in a class by itself. To begin, guests (and there is just one party of them on the property at any given time) get a private barn-turned-guesthouse to call their own. The newly renovated, open-plan space (only the bathroom is completely separated by floor-to-ceiling walls and a door) is cleverly designed to maximize views of both the hundreds of acres of rolling meadow outside and the wonderful volume of space within. Furnished by Renee with an artist’s touch, the result is like something out of—no other word for it—a dream.
Most farms specializing in stays operate like b&b’s, where guests and farmers gather around a common breakfast table. Not here. At Kinderhook Farm, guests cook for themselves in their own well-appointed kitchen. This arrangement is ideal for families with small children, and no less so for couples seeking solitude in a beautiful setting—a place to read, write, paint, or just be still, the better to observe—or, if they like, participate in—the life of the farm.
Despite an appearance of serenity, farms teem with life, from cock’s crow in the morning to the sheep returning to their barn at night. Guests also have their own kitchen garden, where they are free to pick their dinner—produce and eggs are included in the price of the rental. For stellar organic meat, the farm store is just a short stroll from the guest barn.
Food, yes, broadband, no. The barn has no t.v., no telephone, no internet, though cell service (depending on provider) is generally good. For those determined to keep in touch, there are plenty of internet cafés, as well as art galleries, restaurants, a world-class auction house, antiques stores, even a first-rate nightclub in nearby Hudson, just 15 minutes away. Kinderhook Farm’s one concession to connectivity: the management thoughtfully provides a radio.
Kinderhook Farm
Ghent, NY
Rates: $285/night, 2 night minimum; $1800/week, eggs and vegetables included
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 02/28/11 at 06:31 PM • Permalink
Simmons’ Way: An Inn in the Heart of Millerton
From the veranda of Simmons’ Way Village Inn on Main Street, Jay and Marty Reynolds may have the best view of Millerton—literally and figuratively. As in-town innkeepers, they take the pulse of the tourist trade every morning when they serve eggs or pancakes to the guests at their 9 bedroom inn. While merchants and elected officials from neighboring towns scratch their heads trying to understand why Millerton has become a hot spot and how to duplicate its success, Jay Reynolds has a three word explanation: The Rail Trail. “There were several factors that led to Millerton’s Tipping Point,” he says, citing the arrival of Harney Tea‘s wholesale and retail operations. “But it’s the Rail Trail that has really made us a destination.”
When the Reynolds (right) moved 90 minutes north eight years ago from White Plains, NY, where they’d been moonlighting by running a philanthropic bed-and-breakfast (the proceeds benefited P.E.O. International, a women’s service organization) as well as working full-time jobs, they felt that Millerton was on the rise as more and more New Yorkers sought solace in rural surroundings. “It was just after 9/11,” recalls Marty, who had been downsized from her corporate job. “The inn was in perfect shape and all decorated. We could buy it and run it as is.”
Jay remembers taking into account Millerton’s proximity not only to New York City but also to Lime Rock race track and a slew of boarding schools (Hotchkiss, Indian Mountain, Kildonan, Millbrook, Salisbury) that would bring a steady stream of visitors. “There seemed to be a solid economic base for an inn, and it was clear that many New Yorkers were fed up with the Hamptons,” he says. Certainly, there’s nothing Hamptons-esque about Simmons’ Way. It has a quirky homespun charm. Once a private home, the 19th century house was converted to an inn some 20 years ago by then owners Bob & Carol Sadlon, who run The Moviehouse across the street.
“We’re an inn with the soul of a bed and breakfast,” says Jay. The couple cook breakfast for guests themselves in the kitchen that they share with No. 9 Restaurant. “That was the deal we made with Tim and Taryn when they rented the restaurant space from us,” says Marty. “We had to be able to cook breakfast there. We clean up after ourselves, and they leave the kitchen clean for us in the morning.” Leasing their restaurant space to No. 9 has been a boon. “Our guests love being able walk down to have dinner in a really fine restaurant,” says Jay, who understands that location is everything with real estate. “Why Millerton?” he says, asking the question that he is always asked. “It has great appeal because it is a friendly, walkable, shoppable town.”
Simmons’ Way Village Inn
53 Main Street; 518.789.6235
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 01/26/11 at 12:29 PM • Permalink
It’s A Wonderful Life (Again) at the Falls Village Inn
Last week, Christmas came early to Falls Village, CT, with the reopening of the Falls Village Inn, which dates back to 1834. For the past four years, the inn had been dark (after a brief interlude as an ill-conceived German restaurant) and the town (population 1,200) had been holding its breath, hoping that someone would come along and resuscitate it. Everybody seemed to share a similar vision: They wanted a down-to-earth New England tavern where anyone—firemen, weekenders, families with children—would feel welcome and where you could put up your out-of-town relatives for the night. But the asking price was ridiculous: $1.2 million. It seemed like the inn might stay dark forever, but then the bank foreclosed, the price kept dropping, and some starry-eyed buyers came along. What the buyers—Colin Chambers and Susan Sweetapple—didn’t know was that a Fairy Godmother who lived a stone’s throw from the inn would come along to help them make magic.
Chambers and Sweetapple had never intended to become innkeepers and restaurateurs. They were weekenders who had fallen in love with northwestern Connecticut through their connections to the Lime Rock Park race track, and they were looking to buy a house. “One day, our real estate agent Elyse Harney Morris drove us up to the inn but I didn’t want to get out of the car,” recalls Chambers, an advertising executive whose clients include Lime Rock. But Harney knew that Sweetapple, who worked for a national hotel chain, just might see the potential in the historic but woebegone inn. “We didn’t immediately bite, but we couldn’t get it out of our minds,” says Sweetapple. “We could tell this was a special place and a special town.”
But they had no idea just how important the inn was to the town’s collective consciousness. “As soon as we closed on the inn last April, people started knocking on the door, asking us when we were opening and offering us advice about what to serve,” says Sweetapple. “We thought we could open quietly, and leave quietly if we failed. We realized that would be impossible. People in the town cared too much.” The new owners started a Facebook page and had hundreds of friends within days. When they asked what people wanted on the menu, they got 50 responses, including several pleas to serve grass-fed burgers from Whippoorwill Farm in Salisbury, which is owned by Robin and Allen Cockerline, who had lived in Falls Village for many years.
And then one day in June, the world renowned interior designer Bunny Williams, who has been spending weekends in Falls Village for more than 30 years, showed up on the inn’s sloping front porch. “She stuck out her hand and said, ‘I’m Bunny Williams and I want to help you decorate the inn’,” recalls Chambers, who had no idea who she was. “I quickly Googled her and I couldn’t believe it. We were not her typical clients. We had no budget.” And then Williams made the couple an offer they couldn’t refuse: She would make this a pro bono project.
Why did Williams offer to work for free? “Falls Village needed this inn,” says Williams, whose much photographed house and garden (see: An Affair with A House) is just 100 yards from the inn. “Falls Village needed a soul, a reason for people to visit. I thought the least I could do is to volunteer myself. I had always thought about buying the inn myself, but I had too much on my plate. I thought, I will show Colin and Susan how to do this right. I’m not sure they knew what they were in for. They were very surprised when I said they were going to have to move some doors upstairs because there were no walls big enough for king size beds.”
“Bunny said we had to have king-size beds—California kings,” says Chambers, who was much more surprised when she personally demonstrated how to make those beds last weekend. (The linens she specified were not yet on the beds for these photos.) “At hotels where I’ve worked, they taught us to make beds very tight with everything tucked in,” says Sweetapple. “But Bunny showed us how she makes her beds at home, so you just lift up the covers and slip in.” The owners learned that Williams has opinions about everything when it comes to hospitality (although this is her first hotel-and-restaurant project.) “As she says, ‘You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression’,” says Chambers. “For instance, she insisted that we rebuld the front steps outside. I thought the old stone steps were kind of charming, but she felt they were not welcoming and she was absolutely right.”
Now entering the inn is like coming home. There are coat hooks in the front hall that make it feel like an elegant, Bunny Williams-style mud room. There are garlands on the front staircase that lead to the four completed bedrooms—two are suites with trundle beds for kids—that feel like guest rooms you might find at Williams’ own house. Williams had local help to execute her vision: Pete Rich, a house stager, hunted for old furniture at places like Johnson’s in Millerton and would email Williams photos for approval, while Robin Cockerline, the illustrator and co-owner of Whippoorwill Farm, shopped for rugs, linens, sconces and dishes for the restaurant. “Joan Osofsky of Hammertown was very generous,” says Williams. “She allowed us to buy everything at cost.”
The 40-seat Tap Room was packed on the opening weekend. “We want this to be a casual, comfortable place where you can always get a hamburger,” says Chambers, noting that guests can choose between a conventional burger ($10) or the Whippoorwill grass-fed burger ($15) The menu is exactly what the Facebook fans wanted (and Williams decreed no “drizzling” on any of the plates): Chicken Wings ($10), Shepherd’s Pie ($17), Chicken Pot Pie ($15). Last Sunday, the lunch specials included chef Jose Lalvay’s fish tacos ($12) and more than one guest requested it be made a menu staple. For dessert, there is coconut, chocolate and lemon cake from Jason Young’s Sweet William’s Bakery, which started out around the corner in Falls Village before moving to Salisbury.
While Chambers and Sweetapple get accustomed to being innkeepers, Williams continues to guide them and plot how she will decorate the main dining room and porch that overlooks the town green, which are set to open in the spring.“It’s been fun to work on a tight budget—you can’t buy good taste,” says Williams. “The real miracle is going to be when we’re finished!” It’s impossible for the owners to recall how they planned to tackle this project before Williams stepped in. “Bunny is our super-hero,” says Chambers.
The Falls Village Inn
33 Railroad Street, Falls Village, CT; 860.824.0033
Rooms: $199 to $279
Tap Room Hours:
Thursday & Friday 4 - 10 p.m. (kitchen open 5 - 9 p.m.)
Saturday & Sunday noon - 10 p.m.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 12/07/10 at 11:55 PM • Permalink
The Pines: A Luxury B&B in Pine Plains
Jorge and Eileen Yajure are not run-of-the-mill romantics who frivolously fall head-over-heels with old houses. They are thoughtful, bookish Manhattan-based engineers (their high-profile projects include the recent renovation of Lincoln Center and the awesome Hearst Tower) who fell in love eight years ago with an 1878 mansion in the heart of Pine Plains—and they’ve been painstakingly restoring and furnishing it ever since. Last summer, they finally opened the first phase of The Pines, a luxury bed-and-breakfast with just four bedrooms that evokes the grandeur of the era when it was built. “We are trying to give our guests an experience not just a place to stay,” says Eileen. “It’s not exactly time travel, but it is a real taste of the Gilded Age.”
Back in the day, breakfast was a big deal, and so is the four-course version served at The Pines, which is prepared by chef Catherine Greeley, a graduate of Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration. “It’s like a breakfast you might have been served if you came to the Hudson Valley to stay with the Astors or Vanderbilts,”
says Jorge. While the table is set with Bernardaud china and antique silver—including a triple knife rest and Japonais napkin rings—the menu is thoroughly contemporary with specials such as zucchini fritters with bacon and radish; orange, raspberry and pomegranate salad with lemon verbena; smoked trout, vegetable & egg roulade with dill, farmer’s cheese and sauteed bok choy; baked egg and mushroom blossom with wilted greens and black forest ham on a potato carpaccio pancake. The daily menu contains the now de rigueur roll call of local suppliers such as Amazing Real Live Food Company, Coach Farm, Eger Farm, Harney Tea, Josef Meiller Slaughterhouse, Mountain Products Smokehouse, Russell Farms, and Sol Flower Farm.
The public rooms may look like they belong in a museum, but they are meant to be used. “We’ve stayed at B&Bs where they lock up or alarm rooms at night but we don’t do that,” says Eileen. “We don’t lock the glass bookcases in the library. We want people to read our books. We want guests to touch and use everything.” Jorge notes that if a group or family books all four bedrooms, they have full run of the place. “It’s very nice for wedding parties,” says Eileen. The library and bedrooms have wallpapers that were designed in the late 19th century. “Their three-part Aesthetic Movement wall sets from Bradbury & Bradbury in California,” explains Jorge. “One panel for the dado, one above, and another above the picture rail. The wallpaper in the library was actually designed in 1878—the year the house was built.” They also put a lot of emphasis on finding period lighting. “Of course,” says Jorge, “we use electricity but the original fixtures would have used gas or kerosene.”
The couple is especially proud of how they’ve created bedrooms that are old-world and up-to-date. All of the antique beds have refreshingly plain white Frette sheets and California King-sized mattresses. “We found a wonderful furniture maker in Rhinebeck, Michael Gregorio, who extended the old beds for us,” explains Eileen. “You’d be hard pressed to tell what part is new and what part is old. People love these beds. Unlike most antique beds, they’re super solid and, importantly, they don’t creak!”
The Pines is still a work in progress, and the introductory rate of $285 a night is bound to go up next summer. Meanwhile, the couple have plans to make it possible to experience The Pines without spending the night. “We’re going to glass-in the porch and make it a tea room,” says Eileen. They installed radiant heat on the floors, and painted the ceiling with red-and-white stripes so you feel like you are under an awning, which creates a whimsical ambience. The Pines’ young manager, Molly Clauhs (another Cornell graduate), and Chef Greeley are part of a new wave of young residents helping to revive once sleepy Pine Plains. They believe a luxury inn is crucial to the evolution of the region as a destination for agricultural tourism. “Hotels,” says Clauhs, “can be vehicles for change.”
The Pines
5 Maple Street, Pine Plains, NY; 518.398.7677
Exterior photography by Gemma Ingalls
Room photographs by Elliott Kaufman
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 11/10/10 at 12:39 PM • Permalink
Berkshire B&Bs Offer Free Rooms for Vets
The Birchwood Inn, Lenox MA
Veterans Day is one of the few Federal holidays that has not been moved to a Monday, which means a lot of us will not be going to work on Thursday, November 11. If you’re a veteran, you can have a free mini-vacation in the Berkshires courtesy of eleven B&Bs that are offering rooms at no charge to vets on Wednesday, November 10. The B&B for Vets program was launched last year in West Virginia, and now some 800 inns in 49 states are participating in the program. 
“We are proud that so many of the Berkshire Visitors Bureau member inns and B&Bs [such as the Inn at Stockbridge, right] are taking part in this fantastic program,” says Laurie Klefos, president and CEO of the Berkshire Visitors Bureau. “I believe this is a great way for Berkshire County to show its support for our veterans and hope to continue and grow this as a Berkshire tradition.”
Berkshire Visitor Bureau Members Participating in B&Bs for Vets:
Apple Tree Inn, Lenox: 413.637.1477
Applegate Inn, Lee: 800.691.9012
Birchwood Inn, Lenox: 800,524.1646
Christine’s B&B and Tearoom, Great Barrington: 800.536.1186
Devonfield Inn, Lee: 800.664.0880
Federal House Inn, South Lee: 800.243.1834
Mount Greylock Inn, Adams: 413.743.2665
Ramblewood Inn, Sheffield: 413.298.3337
The Inn at Stockbridge, Stockbridge: 413.298.3337 (photo right)
The Rookwood Inn, Lenox: 800.223.9750
Whistler’s Inn, Lenox: 413.637.0975
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 11/01/10 at 11:43 AM • Permalink
It’s Always a Holiday Weekend at Mepal Manor & Gedney Farm
Gedney Farm hosts lavish rural weddings.
Brad Wagstaff and Leslie Miller are the accidental wedding planners. When they arrived (separately) in the Berkshires more than thirty years ago, they were each pursuing a rural, crunchy-granola lifestyle after stints in cities. He had run a financial magazine in New York, and she had baked cookies for the concession stand at Boston’s Orson Welles Cinema. When they met, they discovered they shared an appreciation of historic architecture, an eye for beauty, and a taste for sophisticated food. When they renovated New Marlborough’s Old Inn on the Green and opened it as a B&B in 1979, they had no clear ambition. They didn’t really have a business plan when they opened the Old Inn as a restaurant in 1982 (with Michele Miller in the kitchen), creating an upscale-but-down-to-earth dining experience in 18th century rooms lit only by candlelight. (They sold the restaurant a few years ago to chef Peter Platt.) When they purchased Gedney Farm up the road in 1980, they were happy to have 80 dairy cows living in one of their two barns. “We milked them night and day for six years,” recalls Wagstaff. Then one day in the late 1980s a woman drove up to Gedney Farm and told the stunned couple: “I want to have my daughter’s wedding in your barn!” It seemed feasible, so they were suddenly and unexpectedly in the wedding business.
Now, 21 years later, Gedney Farm and Mepal Manor are a destination wedding venue that’s both rustic and luxurious. The event barn is spare enough that brides and grooms can art direct their weddings to look like catalog shoots for—take your pick—Anthropologie, J. Crew, or Ralph Lauren. “We’ve had every type of wedding imaginable,” says Miller, looking up at the rafters and then offering a stack of photo albums of weddings that all look worthy of Martha Stewart Living. “We’ve had weddings with gingham tablecloths and hay bales, and we’ve had black tie weddings with crystal chandeliers.”
Once they started having weddings, they got rid of the cows and renovated the other barn so it could function as an inn. “We toured renovated barns all over New England to get ideas,” says Wagstaff who worked with architect Robert Edson Swain on a design that managed to maintain the barn’s character and openness while still creating 16 luxurious bedrooms and suites. The downstairs rooms boast wood-burning fireplaces while the upstairs rooms have whirlpool tubs with interior skylights that look up at the original rafters. The overall effect is one of utter enchantment that puts wedding guests in the right mood.
The concept of the wedding weekend has evolved into an elaborate ritual, according to Miller and Wagstaff. “The first change was that kids did not want to do what their parents did—they did not want to get married in a hotel or country club,” says Wagstaff. “They like the idea of a farm because it was simpler, but they also wanted it fancier.” To accommodate changing mores, the couple bought neighboring Mepal Manor, a formidable 1906 house that had been both a private residence and then a boarding school. “We wanted to have more rooms for wedding guests and we also wanted to have a spa.” says Wagstaff. As Miller wryly notes: “Brides today like to get manicures and do yoga or pilates with their bridesmaids before the wedding.” Their spa is the school’s former gymnasium that architect Swain retrofitted so it feels like an exclusive Zen retreat in northern California. It is open to the public by appointment for everything from a hot stone massage ($160 for 80 minutes) and a mud wrap ($120 for 75 minutes) to a bikini wax ($30) and a blow out ($40). They rent out part of the gym during the week to Gymnastics Unlimited which offers classes and birthday parties.
The only downside to getting married at Gedney Farm is that couples are rarely able to return to celebrate their anniversaries there because the inn is invariably booked with another wedding. “We run a special Valentine’s Day promotion for them,” says Miller (left, with Wagstaff on Mepal Manor’s back terrace.) “We also have special packages from Sunday to Thursday for tourists. As everyone knows, the best time to be in the Berkshires, especially in summer, is during the week.” And for those vacationers as well as locals, there is now dinner service on Wednesdays and Thursdays at Mepal Manor.
Gedney Farm & Mepal Manor & Spa
Route 57, New Marlborough, MA
800.286.3139
413. 229.7501
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/30/10 at 07:21 PM • Permalink
The Spirit of Bohemia Lives at Sheffield’s Race Brook Lodge
Allegra Scott Graham and David Rothstein outside the Race Brook Lodge
Before it became a brand, the Berkshires was a state of mind. If you’re searching for that now mythic land where Alice’s Restaurant was not just a song but a place where hippies congregated, you can start at Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield, MA. Owned by David Rothstein, an architect who once worked as a model-maker for Louis Kahn (whose reputation as a visionary was cemented by the documentary My Architect), Race Brook Lodge offers its guests a funky, crunchy-granola ambiance along with farm-to-table cuisine at its sister restaurant, the Stagecoach Tavern, which is managed by Allegra Scott Graham, Rothstein’s longtime partner.
Once a Young Turk who staged outdoor folk and rock concerts in Lenox at the legendary Music Inn during the 1970s, Rothstein is now a rumpled raconteur, a grand seigneur who drives a 1980 Mercedes fueled by bio-diesel from his restaurant’s kitchen. Over the past twenty years, he has carved up the 200-year-old barn into 15 bedrooms (he lives on the top floor beneath the cupola) and renovated rooms in other buildings on the property so now there are 32 guest rooms. There’s also an entertaining barn—brought over in pieces from New York State on a flatbed truck and reassembled in a post-modern fashion—that is rented out for weddings and retreats. “Our first retreat was with the Hoffman Quadrinity Process, and they have been coming back five or six times a year for a decade,” says Graham. “We also get a group from the Harvard School of Public Health.”
Staying at Race Brook Lodge, which is adjacent to Mount Everett State Reservation and the Appalachian Trail, is like spending the night with slightly eccentric, intellectual friends who have more dash than cash. There are no telephones, TVs or minibars in the rooms, though there is an honor bar in the main barn where guests can help themselves to a beer. Graham has decorated the guest rooms with style on a shoestring. “I discovered tag sales, and little by little I’ve patched up the rooms,” she says. “I’m always making do. I’ve never been able to do an entire room from scratch.”
These days, Graham focuses most of her attention on the next-door Stagecoach Tavern—a quintessentially New England restaurant with an arty flair—that Rothstein purchased about seven years ago. “I bought the building for its guest rooms and we planned to rent out the restaurant to someone else, but that did not work out so we took it on ourselves,” he says. They hired Dan Smith of John Andrews as a consultant in the beginning, and eventually hired Smith’s pastry chef, Sarah Dibben, as the chef. “Sarah has worked very hard to make us a farm-to-table restaurant,” says Graham, who notes that Bjorn Somlo (before opening his highly regarded Nudel) ran the kitchen while Dibben was on maternity leave. “Sarah has given the restaurant a vibrant and heartfelt connection,” says Graham. “She supports our local farmers, and we sponsored a dinner for them last year out on our porch. Her new Sunday Supper menu, which changes every week, has really caught on.”
Rothstein and Graham have endless projects. They are planting an herb and cutting garden. “We want to grow all our own flowers for our guest rooms and restaurant,” says Graham, who is constantly tweaking the look of the dining rooms with flea market finds. Rothstein is “de-junkifying” and rebuilding the greenhouse that he hopes can be used as a dining room. He’s forever working on his boat, a 44-foot 1940 Elco Cruisette that he used to dock at New York’s 79th Street Boat Basin, which now sits under a tarp in the middle of the property along with a 1940s tractor that he’s repairing. “David grew up on a farm in New Jersey, and he’s uncomfortable if there aren’t a few pieces of rusted farm equipment lying around,” says Graham.
Rothstein’s thinking about organizing some reunion concerts this summer to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Music Inn, which opened with Arlo Guthrie and introduced a young James Taylor to the Berkshires in 1970. (When he bought Music Inn, it had been abandoned after being a hot spot for jazz in the 1950s, which is the subject of a documentary that his son Casey Meade Rothstein-Fitzpatrick helped make.) He is still at heart a music impresario who plans to resuscitate the Stagecoach basement as the Down County Lounge. Meanwhile, Graham runs the front of the restaurant, he chats up guests, an engaging eminence grise, who’s on call to fix a leaky pipe or electrical short on a moment’s notice. “David,” Graham says affectionately, “is our roving bon vivant.”
Race Brook Lodge & Stagecoach Tavern
Route 41, Sheffield, MA; 413.229.2916/413.229.8585
Summer rates: $105 -$290
