Let me tell you about the White Chapel Inn. It used to be the Hurt Family Inn. Before that it was Sprawling Oaks Bed and Breakfast. It is located on the site of what was once the third largest plantation in the entire South: Sprawling Oaks, which subsisted on juniper, rice and cotton. The house managed to survive the Civil War and Sherman's rages, and was sold, along with the forty acres, to a wealthy shipping tycoon from Baltimore in 1860 who saw a future in cotton. The house stayed in the tycoon's family until 1930 when it was lost, along with most of the family's wealth. The land was leased out in pieces to whatever local farmers could afford it and raise whatever crops, and it was during this time that the southern most part of the land was converted to an orchard for peaches and apples. The house stood, abandoned and depreciating in value until 1936 when my husband's grandfather, a moderately wealthy hardware store franchiser, bought the place and all the land and offered the local farmers a lower price than the one they'd been getting through their lease with the state. His initial plan was to make it museum (he'd started talks with local historical society and the Smithsonian to make it into a national landmark) but he was so impressed with the work he'd done and the work that could be done, that he wanted the place to remain functional. So he and his wife opened it as a bed and breakfast with only six rooms available, the rest choked with objects from around the house; some valuable, some not.
After a few years of success, Nathan's grandfather bought up chunks of disused farm land and began growing on some of them. The ones he didn't use either fell back into disuse or were leased out to other farmers or sold to land developers over the years. My father-in-law, Mathis was born in the house that had once been Sprawling Oaks, the youngest of three. His eldest brother, some nine years older than he, died at Market Garden and the next eldest son, Samuel, took over the place upon the death of their father. Mathis didn't continue to work the place under the supervision of his brother, and after college and Korea, returned only to move into a small farmhouse that had actually been passed to him. It had been a farm for strawberries, blueberries and cucumbers, and Mathis moved into the modest house and tended the crops, along with the Spanish dancer he had miraculously wooed away from the USO after the war. When Joe died, Mathis took over, and he has been working it since then. We've had presidents stay here as guests, movie stars and professional athletes, politicians and their wives, politicians and their mistresses. We are very discrete.
I have discovered an immense well of peace that has no bottom, a source of joy that is constantly renewing itself.
Let me tell you about my inn.
We have a modest 40 acres, most of which is my father-in-law's territory, his gardens, and a small stable in which we keep 5 horses: Tawny, Saber, Butch, Peaches and Dr. Zhivago. The far western edge of our property leads, through a path starting just beyond the pasture, through a small wood and to a polo field, where, most days of the week, Rijken, our stable hand, can have free rein over the place for lessons when he's not riding the path with guests. This amenity is free to all paying guests.
If you cross over the polo field, you'll find that the path continues through a five-mile stretch of some of the most beautiful land you'll see around here. As you head straight West through it, the land becomes more cultivated and the last square two miles or so is the public park, which represents the beginning of downtown. The path circles around the outer edge of the park so guests can see the charm and character of our small town, and then meets itself at the edge of the woods and leads back to the inn. This aspect of our location and our link is a real winner with guests and it brings in a lot of them every year. With this guided walk by Rijken (whom the town lovingly has dubbed "Dutch" after my father-in-law) the guest feels that the whole town is welcoming them, that there is a real unity here, which there is.
The house itself is a Greek Revival that was built in 1837 in the style of the Joseph Manigualt house. There is a charming parking circle in front and an iron gate that is always open during the day so as to appear welcoming. The front porch is Colonial style and deep, with seagrass furniture because it's more comfortable than wicker. In the summer we hang large misting fans and serve sweet tea and cucumber sandwiches. Through the grand cut-glass double doors is the main foyer, with various rooms branching off on each side, and a winding staircase wrapped around an antique chandelier put in about thirty years ago.
Directly under the chandelier is the reception desk, a large federal-style affair behind which sits Karen, our clerk. The carpet in here is Egyptian Mamluk, dark navy and gold to emphasize the regency style of the room. The carpet also nicely compliments the dark reds and browns of the smoking parlor to the right, a room decorated in the Russian Empire style with polished leather furniture and Oriental rugs to soften the sound of a dozen conversations.
Opposite the smoking parlor through three sets of double french doors, is the dining room, my favorite room. The high ceilings offset the crowded population of fifteen pedestal tables in the center of the room and booths along the walls, some large enough to accommodate parties of ten. Any larger party is usually serviced in the day parlor, which converts to a private dining or party area when the need arises. All of our dining room furniture is antique in the Queen Anne style and upholstered in Italian silk in rich creams, golds and reds to accent the dark mahogany of the walls which are decorated in the Thomas Hope style with carved wood medallions from Greece, Impressionist watercolors of exotic birds and beautifully dressed women by the French greats, antique armoires imported from Hong Kong containing a myriad of small antiques that have accumulated over the years: decorative plates from Spain, antique guns from Italy, figurines from Austria. The lights are usually dim at night and bright during the day when guests can attend a daily continental breakfast or tea served two hours before lunch. I'll have to tell you about our kitchen staff later. They're exceptional.
Through the dining room is the kitchen, a large but tubular room that always reminds me of a very well-lit submarine. It was once all eggshell tile but I had it replaced with brushed steel not long ago. We have a meat locker with all fresh, local meat and a vegetable refrigerator with all fresh, local produce. Food is delivered three times a week by friends of ours who appreciate our business and are willing to go out of their way to stop by. During Thanksgiving season we have more turkeys than we know what to do with. But we do have all industrial strength appliances and at any time up to ten people could be preparing a meal or five in here, coexisting nicely. At the far end of the narrow kitchen is the staircase that leads to the basement. The only other entrance to the basement is through the pantry which leads directly out back of the house to Mathis' gardens where he grows prize-winning tomatoes and grapefruit. The basement isn't usually my place in the house; it's always scared me a little bit. Mathis' brother Joe, who ran this place until his death in 1980, had the whole house put on a scaffolding of some kind and had the basement put in back in the early 70's. Down there, in addition to the pantry, is a large laundry room with half a dozen industrial-sized washers and dryers, steamers and sewing machines. We even have copper vats at least a hundred years old for dyeing. There is also a maintenance closet and an employee locker room and bunk for anyone who needs a quick nap on their break.
We have a small crew here, and we want to show our loyalty to them.
The maintenance is usually performed by Mathis, my father-in-law, who owns the Inn but lately, due to his health, has receded from representing it to guests. Most guests who pass through meet Nathan and me, and few inquire about Mathis anymore. I think I'm going to have to hire someone else to fix up around here, since Mathis has taken to taking everything apart and stowing pieces of things around the house. He was working on his Carmen Gia a few months ago and put the carburetor in the linen closet upstairs, ruined a perfectly beautiful Brussels Lace tablecloth.
We have ten bedrooms, two of them suites that were converted from two sleeping porches on opposite wings of the house. The suites are called the Red Room and the Blue Room for obvious reasons; one is decorated in a deep oxblood and the other a navy not unlike the Russian Empire smoking parlor downstairs. The rest of the rooms are pale yellows, greens, blues and pinks, five of them containing two double beds, three of them a single King sized canopy bed. We do not provide our guests with television sets but we do offer desks, chaise lounges and dressing tables all in a Louis XIV-inspired design. All of our bathtubs are antique clawfoot, all of our bathroom decorations rustic and usually made of brass and even the tiles are antique, imported from Barcelona. Room service is available until two a.m and that includes the entire menu but most guests don't order roast duck with foi gras at two in the morning. Housekeeping leaves fresh flowers from Mathis's garden every morning with the fresh coffee and breakfast pastries.
Directly above the front porch is the second-floor balcony, also running the entire width of the house. It is also in the Colonial style, its columns thick, with a running balustrade and dentil molding. Wisteria grows from a hanging arbor over the balcony in the summer, covering the front walk with its dropped petals, releasing its cool fragrance when crushed underfoot.
We used to live in the inn, along with the guests.We used to use the carriage house at back just for storage but then we had a second boy and we moved all of our things out, and converted our little apartment into the second suite. The carriage house is a small, two-story affair with a small winding staircase in the center of the kitchen that leads up to a lofted set of bedrooms and bathroom. There is a small corner living room that looks out at the Inn. Sometimes I just like to sit on the couch and watch the inn, searching for figures in the windows, the flickering of lights, any sign that there is life inside. It's so easy to forget with a house so old.
Sometimes I see things that are not there. I can admit that now. Sometimes I cannot go into certain bedrooms because I feel like someone will be waiting there for me. And I can NEVER go to the basement. That was where all the bad feelings started. And sometimes they still come back. But not if I listen to Nathan. He's been taking real good care of me.
Sometimes I still have the Awful Feelings. The kind that feel like a barbarous army bent on destruction, marching towards my little village. Sometimes I sit by the window and just stare and stare, at the iron gates enclosing our property, at the expanse of Mathis's garden, but I never can remember what it is I'm expecting to see. And that is very frustrating.
The Awful Feelings started before Gabriel left, I can admit that, they started like this vague sense that every decision I made would inevitably lead to disaster and my life would become nothing more than a pool of guilt for me to swim in for the rest of my days. I used to look at the men in my family, my sons, one timid and afraid, the other railing against every word of direction or authority, my elevated father-in-law retreating to his gardens because he has fought wars but none like this, my husband always yelling, always raging and then disappearing and then returning with a soft, apologetic voice and eager hand and I would always do what he wanted with my son's black eye in mind, his fat lip, or sometimes just his voice and it was awful but distracting from the even more awful reality of making love to someone I hated.
Eventually Nathan stopped trying, when he was in and out of treatment and he would return and we would all know it was just a matter of time and so we couldn't even make love anymore because I could look at him and see how dried up he was, like there was nothing warm or soft inside of him to give and there hadn't been much to begin with. I hadn't enjoyed being with Nathan for a long time, not since we were young and he had yet to show his despicable side, the sloppy, lumbering drunk that he was, breaking furniture and embarrassing himself, me, all of us.
You can't come back from that, can you? Not when your image of that person is already unreasonably high.
There was a time when I would have said that Nathan had saved my life. I would lay in bed and chant it to myself, staring at the ceiling and hoping he would pass out on the couch downstairs and I would modify my fear, my repulsion by saying that he had saved my life. I might be dead if not for him. He had saved me. That's what I told the shrinks, all of them, in the beginning. He had saved me from an eternity of boredom, if nothing else. He saved me. He really had.
That was a long time ago.
But it's okay, because I've got the Inn. I've got it more than he ever had it, and it needs me, even if no one else does around here. I could climb around inside its walls like they were made of flesh and they were welcoming me. Most of the time I stay focused on the Inn. If I lose focus, the Awful Feelings start to come back. And then I hurt the Inn. I tear the walls down. I set things on fire. I take whole objects and shatter them to pieces.
There is a lot of work to do today. There will be a lot of work tomorrow.
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