The first telephone call is made to Pamela Whitney now living in the DC area.  Pamela is the decorator who worked with Kathleen on all the rooms in the addition. (www.pamelawhitneydesigns.com)   She designed all the furniture and had it made in a factory in Mexico.  Television armoires that also serve as dressers, desks that double as nightstands and headboards high enough on the wall that you can lean against them to read without being bothered by mouldings.  Pamela has an instant and excellent understanding of what is needed.  Kathleen has a formula for fabric in a room.  One hundred yards of the principal fabric for quilt, drapes, shower curtain and pillow shams: thirty yards of a stripe or nubby solid for dust ruffle, pillows and trim; and ten yards of an upholstery fabric for easy chair and cushion on the straight chair.  Off the two ladies go to Springfield, Massachusetts, to a shop that bills itself as the largest fabric store in America.

Stay tuned for the next installment of “A Room Redo”…

The calendar affirms what our minds and hearts have been longing for… Spring has arrived in Saratoga Springs!   The waist high snow banks are melting, giving way to brown grass and winter debris.  It’s not yet green, but it is a welcome sight to see landscaping crews raking and cleaning up. Soon the crocus, daffodils and tulips will line the sidewalks and the trees will begin to shade the boulevard.

Saratoga Arms is getting a little spring spruce-up. A few rooms in “the old” section are getting a make-over…new room arrangements, a few coats of paint and beautiful new décor.  The halls in the “new section” will be lined with historic photos of old Saratoga from the Bolster Collection of the Historical Society.

Kathleen is enjoying her waning days in Florida, returning home in mid-April. Noel is still in charge of the kitchen churning out those mouthwatering  omelets for the hearty wintertime guests.

Amy and Kathleen will be attending the Innkeeping Conference presented by PAII (Professional Association of Innkeepers International) in Atlanta at the end of the month. It is a time of socialization, exchange of ideas and learning. They always return with some fresh thoughts and renewed enthusiasm.

With the worst of this very long winter behind us and the arrival of the vernal equinox, we welcome the busy sidewalks filled with visitors to Saratoga Springs.

Will you be one of them?

Wesley Armstrong, the best plumber in American and the second most important man in my life, was in the hotel last week getting the air conditioning operational.  Wesley told Noel and me the story of one of his many brothers doing two tours in Viet Nam almost forty years ago.  Warren had been wounded twice, and his family always felt grateful he came home in good health. 

Recently, a Vet from Kansas made a trip to Viet Nam.  While there, he visited a junk shop that offered a large tray of American soldiers’ dog tags for sale.   The fellow from Kansas purchased the whole tray and brought them back to a Boy Scout troop he was involved with back home.

Warren has just received his dog tags along with a detailed letter explaining the project from the young men of the Boy Scout troop.

I hope they all earned a merit badge. 

I returned to Saratoga Springs last week after a wonderful winter on Sanibel Island.  I drove down in January by way of a fabric mill in South Carolina.  (The sign on the door of the mill advised, “No Loaded Firearms Allowed Inside”.)  I stopped in Atlanta for America’s Mart, where I ordered some wonderful lamps and furniture and rugs for the terraces.  I arrived back at Saratoga Arms in time for the US Food show across the street at the City Center where I chose the new china pattern for the hotel.  We have been using a service for three hundred that we purchased nearly thirty years ago when we were in the restaurant game.

Even though I get to spend my winters in sunny Florida, I try to use that time to expedite the constant refreshing that enables us to earn the title of the nicest hotel in town. It’s obvious I didn’t use my Florida time to refresh my blog. 

During the Christmas holidays,  I was asked by a niece to review her college applications.  Such pressure on young people!

 I was reminded of our youngest daughter’s application process many years ago.  After much thought, she wrote an essay that could be tweaked with a sentence or two and it then worked for each of the colleges to which she applied. 

When this child was six, we purchased a motel and an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town and pioneered the Bed and Breakfast concept in Saratoga Springs.  To our surprise youngest daughter chose as her college application essay topic, How My Character was Affected or Developed by being Raised in a Bed and Breakfast. 

Youngest daughter wrote that if a car pulled in the yard with Michigan plates, she knew that they would never share a bathroom.  If a car with Canadian plates came in, they would choose the least expensive room.  If people got out of their car all dressed in black, she knew they were from New York City and that they would not eat eggs for breakfast but would all try to smoke in their rooms.

 Now all these years later, there are very few B & B’s that ask you to share a bath, the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar and youngest daughter did not choose a career in the hospitality industry.

 A lady telephoned on Monday (December 10, 2007).  She stayed at Saratoga Arms in early November but couldn’t remember which room.  She is packing for a Christmas trip to Mexico and cannot locate her charger.  Did she leave it here?  Tech-savvy daughter asked what brand.  “No idea”, says she.  “It’s very different looking” was the only clue she could give. The computer told T/S daughter what room she had stayed in.  T/S daughter went to the Lost and Found Log and found something that might have been left around the first part of November. 

Now here’s where it gets to be amazing.  Tech-savvy daughter takes a picture of the missing equipment and emails it off to woman packing for Mexico from her iPhone.  “Is this yours?”  Two minutes later woman packing for Mexico emails back with her Fedex number.  And now that it is Wednesday, the charger is in the Mexico bound suitcase. 

I just want to keep up.

We have just finished another busy weekend at Saratoga Arms.  That means on Monday morning the telephone calls start.  “Did I leave my phone charger in Room 218?”  “Did you find my thyroid medicine in Room 103?”  “Oh…I left my favorite pillow there!”  We start shipping on Tuesdays…but only after we receive an email or a call requesting that whatever was left behind be sent back.  It wasn’t always this way, but life teaches many lessons.

Our first foray into the lodging industry was in 1984 when we purchased an old motel on five acres on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs.  We moved our family there.  The only paved area on the property was the 135 feet of concrete in front of the motel, and it was in this area that our six year old rode her bike up and down the sidewalk with our wonderful yellow Lab named Bates Motel trailing behind her. Shortly after we refurbished and opened for business, a lovely couple from western New York State checked in for a few days.  The husband had business in the area and the wife stayed at the motel during the day waiting for her husband’s return.  She was especially kind to little Ann and Bates as they rode up and down.  She fulfilled all requirements to be a pleasant guest.  When they checked out, the gentleman left behind a sports coat hanging in the motel room closet.  I was so efficient and organized in those days that without being asked, I packed it up and sent it back to Syracuse.  Three days later I received a telephone call from a woman who asked me exactly when her husband was at our motel.

I don’t return anything now unless someone requests that it be sent back.

“Mom, you’re going to write a blog.” my thirty something daughter said to me. She had just spent eight months convincing her seventy year old father and sixty year old mother that we were going to spend a small fortune to redesign our hotel’s website and give a young woman in Hawaii the job of promoting it. Hard for me to swallow. We were getting so much of our reservations from our old website, and besides, everyone knows that no one actually works in Hawaii. The new Saratoga Arms’ website went live a month ago. Within ten days we had pulled in enough online reservations and a conference to pay for it. It must be very difficult to be a smart, sharp, tech savvy daughter of the founders of Saratoga’s very best lodging property and have to combat twentieth century parents with whom you work.

The next hurdle is to educate her old mother to blog protocol. Like Betty Davis said, fasten your seatbelts. It could be a bumpy ride.