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Sylvia Beach Hotel

Sylvia Beach, as you literary types already know, is not a beach. She was a bookseller in Paris in the 1920s who hung out with such notables as Dorothy Parker.

In Oregon, though, Sylvia Beach is a beach-front hotel that caters to book lovers. The old wood-frame waterfront building, in the nice old part of Newport called Nye Beach, has literary themed guest rooms: The Edgar Allan Poe room, for example, is decorated all in black and features a pendulum over the bed. There's a Dr. Seuss room and an Emily Dickinson room and an F. Scott Fitzgerald room. The hotel has no telephones, radios or TVs in its guest rooms. The rooms do have journals, which make entertaining reading. Meals are served family style in the dining room, and hot spiced wine is offered at 10 p.m. A couple free-range cats wander the premises and may even visit you in your room.

Altogether a little precious -- there's a bit of a dowdy old ladies wearing sweats factor -- but completely enjoyable. Check the hotel's website for more details.

 

all text and images © 2005-06 by Bob Keefer
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