This winter I finally made it somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for a long time: The Sylvia Beach Hotel.
You might be excused for thinking Sylvia Beach is a place—the hotel does overlook a long and wide swath of damp sand with crashing waves. But Sylvia Beach is not a beach, Sylvia Beach is a person. She was the founder of Shakespeare & Company, the legendary English language bookstore in Paris.
Knowing this will set the stage for all you might experience if you ever drive along the Oregon Coast and stop in the town of Newport to stay at the Sylvia Beach Hotel. This is a place for book lovers.
The building itself is an old hotel that had run down on its luck when it was purchased, twenty-five years ago, by two childhood friends who decided to revive the building as a different sort of hotel. Perched high overlooking Nye Beach in Newport on the central Oregon coast, it’s a place I’ve been hearing about for years.
When Goody Cable and Sally Ford bought the now 100 year-old building, they asked friends to help decorate the rooms in the style of their favorite authors. The friends had fun with the idea and did them proud. From jungle prints and stuffed animal heads in the Hemingway room, to a map of middle-earth painted on the wall of the JRR Tolkien room (the large boots outside the door belong to Tom Bombadil). Everywhere you look is creativity and whimsey.
The rooms are an utter highpoint of the stay. They’re mostly on the smaller side, with a washstand in the room and toilet and bath in a separate bathroom. This isn’t the sort of place you go for a luxury vacation, this is where you go for unique quirky charm. You can tell the people behind the décor had a sense of humor. There are bottles of gin lined up in the F. Scott Fitzgerald room, and this sign by the sink in the Shakespeare room.
I mean, you gotta have a sense of humor if you’re putting together a Doctor Seuss room, right?
Every day we were there, we looked forward to check-out time when other guests would leave and we might be able to peek into the rooms while they were being cleaned. The cleaning crew was very tolerant of this. I am sure they are used to it.
This is the Steinbeck Room, as you can imagine.
My favorite (though it’s awfully hard to choose) was the Colette suite. There are three suites, which feature fireplaces and little sitting areas and superior views: Colette, Mark Twain, and Agatha Christie (there are clues hidden around the room). The Colette room, as you would expect, is terribly romantic and feminine.
In addition to the literary theme of the rooms, the third floor of the hotel houses a library, filled with comfy couches and chairs where guests can curl up with a good book (or with their e-reader, as I saw at least one person doing).
There’s a little kitchen off the library where you can help yourself to endless tea and coffee to go with your books.There are shelves filled with a staggering array of board games, should you want to distract yourself. And every evening, after dinner, there is mulled wine served to the guests. And a fire in the fireplace. Did I mention cozy? The weather was quite nice when we were there, but I imagine how lovely it must be when the winds and the rain come and you’re curled up in an armchair next to the fire.
The entire hotel feels like it might have stepped out of a novel—one where people stay in pensione, meet intriguing characters, and have meals together in the dining room, their Baedeker guides clutched at their sides.
Part of this is because meals are taken communally. The dining room has eight-seat tables, which encourages interaction amongst strangers. This is a refreshing change from those seaside getaways where couples keep to themselves (solo travelers will feel quite comfortable here). People are friendly at meals, and the other guests are interesting folks, as you would imagine of those who make their way to a place like this (the ratio of Prius-owning, NPR listeners is rather high here). Breakfast, which comes with an impressive array of baked goods, was made fun each day by good conversations.
And it gets even better at dinner.
The hotel has a restaurant called Tables of Content, on the bottom floor of the big building. Dinners are served family style to each table and people chat with each other throughout the evening. This might be because of The Game.
The game is two truths and a lie—where you go around the table and each player tells two things about themselves that are true and one that is made up. The other players ask questions trying to figure out which is which. You don’t have to play, but it’s actually quite fun, and a fascinating way to get to know your tablemates.
And between baked goods in the morning and big dinners in the evening, you can take breaks from your reading to walk the beach (To the Lighthouse! Past The Waves!) Yes, there is a Virginia Woolf room).
I should probably mention the Sylvia Beach Hotel may not be for everyone. It says so on the website. “When you walk up our garden path to the front door,” the website says, “the old building will give you a big hug or spit you out, depending on what really matters to you.” And it’s true. There is no wi-fi, no telephones in the rooms, no television. This is a place for people who love books, who like cozy and quirky and perhaps a little worn. People who are not allergic to cats (there are two).
But if you are one of those people, then you may feel like someone has built a hotel just for you. A place utterly delightful where you can settle in and relax to your heart’s content. Perhaps in this armchair in the corner of the Jane Austen room, with a view down the beach.
Or you could take a nap in the JK Rowling room, in a curtained bed under a broomstick and quiddich goggles, with wands on the wall and, in the opposite corner, a stuffed owl in a cage (Hedwig!).
If you are the sort of person that fits the Sylvia Beach Hotel, you might find yourself not wanting to leave (there are so many books still to be read). Apparently some guests reserve their next year’s visit on departure, so they can get their favorite room. I can understand this. I would like to be one of them.
Oh yes, Sylvia Beach Hotel. I will be back. Maybe I’ll see you there. I’ll be the one curled up in the corner of the library with a big novel and a contented smile on my face.
The Sylvia Beach Hotel
267 NW Cliff Street
Newport, OR 97365
888-795-8422
that has survived so much, to tell the stories, and to raise money to continue rebuilding efforts. The name Kibo means “brimming with hope.”
