Inn Boonsboro - Nora Roberts
The latest news of a literary nature – and where our Dear Jane figures in – is the opening of the Nora Roberts’s Inn Boonsboro in Boonsboro, Maryland on February 17, 2009. Ms. Roberts, the author of over 170 novels (also under the name of J.D. Robb), has been renovating this seven bedroom bed & breakfast over the past two years. Wanting each of the rooms to be decorated with a fictional romantic theme, her biggest problem was finding in the literary canon seven happy couples! As she says,
Romeo and Juliet? Dead. Tristan and Isolde? Dead. Not happy. Dead, dead, dead. Rhett Butler and Scarlett? He didn’t give a damn. You try finding seven of them!
But seven she did find, and a rousing cast of characters of pure romance and happiness could not be better represented!
- Nick & Nora Charles ~ sleak art deco and fussy Hollywood glamour
- Lt. Eve Dallas & Rourke [from Roberts’s In Death Series] ~ modern with antique touches
- Marguerite & Percy [Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel] ~ the opulence of 18th-century France
- Shakespeare’s Titania & Oberon [A Midsummer Night’s Dream] ~ an organic, fanciful theme, as though waltzing in a magical forest
- Jane & Rochester [Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre] ~ with a fainting couch and free-standing copper tub for soaking in heather-scented water
- Elizabeth & Darcy [Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice] ~ a Regency period flavor, airy and traditional
- Buttercup & Westley [William Goldman’s The Princess Bride] ~ an Old World style, fun and charming
Buttercup & Westley ~ The Princess Bride
There is also a non-themed suite called the Penthouse ~ lush, plush and baronial.
See the Inn Boonsboro website, where you can view some of the rooms [but alas! not the Darcy’s]; but you can take a video tour of the Inn. And just to whet your appetite, read this description of the Elizabeth & Darcy room:
Miss Bennett [sic] and Mr. Darcy would certainly approve of the distinction with which we’ve appointed our Regency-style guest room. The king bed, adorned by a richly-appointed head- and footboard, invites you to slip under the soft cashmere throw, settle back on our multitude of pillows to enjoy the 32″ flat screen TV. Or curl up with a book on the sumptuous velvet side chair with a cup of complementary tea or glass of wine and enjoy the peace of an English country house.
The exquisitely refined bath is a fine marriage of English charm and modern contrivance with a traditional claw-foot slipper tub designed for long bubble baths and a shower enhanced by four body jets. Let our English Lavender bath amenities transport you back to the courtly and romantic age of Pride and Prejudice.
Prices range from $220-280. / weekday night; $250-300. / weekend night; there are also various packages.
[For further information, see these articles at USA Today and the Herald-Mail]
Off to western Maryland , anyone?? ~ sign me up!
Deb
Jane Austen in Vermont 
Do I sound a bit churlish in stating that I don’t wish to make a rich person a little richer for a pedestrian idea (you can’t tell me that naming rooms after fictional characters is original.) I once lived in Maryland (my family still lives there) and know the countryside around Boonesboro well. There are bed and breakfasts near that area run by not so rich people that charge much LESS than this millionaire’s price and that are just as charming. Check this link: http://www.bbonline.com/md/boonsboro.html to see what I mean.
Sorry, Nora. I’ll take a pass and check your 10 books/year out of my library.
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Hi Vic! no, you are not being churlish! It is a tad extravagent and as you say, there are other lovely B&Bs around far more reasonable. If you read further into this, you find that Roberts and other family members have bought up several properties in this town and she is trying to turn it into a destination, and in renovating this Inn, she was trying to keep it from falling into likely irreversible disrepair. Capitalizing on one’s literary icons will work for some people with deeper pockets than mine, and yes, it is certainly not an original idea to name rooms after literary characters or authors – there are several right here in my local area! But I really only wish her the best, esp. in this economy. .[and the place does look lovely!] That said, you are far kinder than I – I don’t even take her books out of the library!
Thanks for visiting!
Deb
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