Back in November, 2017, I wrote a Romance Wanderlust piece about apartments in the New York City Library branches. The response to that column convinced me that yes, we do love our castles and treehouses and our Regency estates, but what really gets the Bitches excited is being around a lot of books.
In this month’s Romance Wanderlust, we’ll explore two very different bookish hotels. As always, I’m obligated to say that I haven’t been to either hotel (sadly) and therefore this is not a review or endorsement.
The Library Hotel in Manhattan is swanky, and when I say “swanky” I mean “they leave a Belgian chocolate on your pillow every night.” The hotel is organized by the Dewey Decimal System. Starting with the third floor, the categories for the floors are Social Sciences, Language, Math and Science, Technology, The Arts, Literature, History, General Knowledge, Philosophy, and Religion. Each room is a subcategory. For instance, you can stay in Room 1100.006 (Love) or Room 500.005 (Dinosaurs) or 700.005 (Music). If you are feeling amorous, you can stay in Room 800.001 (Erotic Literature).
Needless to say, there are books in every room pertaining to the Dewey Decimal number of the room. However, as far as I could tell by looking at pictures, there aren’t very many books per room. Luckily there are more books in the lobby and in the Reading Room. The Reading Room is open 24 hours a day and always provides snacks, plus a continental breakfast and a nightly wine and cheese reception. There’s a greenhouse on the roof with more books and a bar which the hotel website describes as “trendy.” It’s expensive and has a “business casual” dress code (I’m more of a pajama person, myself), but it also has views of the city and more books. Best of all, the hotel is close to the New York Public Library!
The Library Hotel is all about theme and glamour. In contrast, The Literary Man Hotel, in Óbidos, Portugal, is all about the books. This hotel is located in a former convent. The guest rooms were once the chambers of the nuns. Some of the rooms are decorated in a modern style and others in a more traditional style. According to travelandleisure.com, there were about 45,000 books at the hotel in 2016, and at that time the owner had a goal of reaching 100,000 books. I haven’t been able to find out how many books the hotel has now, but I’m comfortable with saying “a lot.”
The Literary Man has an onsite restaurant and a bar, a very old wine cellar and onsite massage services. It’s hard for me to believe that I would ever leave the building, but it is located in a beautiful coastal medieval town that is home to a 700 year-old castle (soon to have a Romance Wanderlust entry of its very own since it is also home to a hotel). Every July the town hosts a giant medieval market fair reenactment. Some of the hotel’s books can be checked out or purchased, so you can go to the shore or the castle with your new book whenever you want a change of scene.
Based on online reviews, it looks like the Library Hotel is a nice place to stay whether you like books or not, assuming that you enjoy Big City glamour with your reading. The books add a special element to what is already a glitzy and romantic place. On the other hand, while there are many nice things about The Literary Man Hotel, the real draw is the books. The location is good in terms of walking around town, but there’s no parking. The rooms are small. Some people rave about the food and some don’t. It’s the books that make it so special!
Have you stayed in a literary hotel? If not, which of these would you want to travel to?
As much as I love books, I already read so many that going on vacation to stay with books defeats the purpose of traveling. Going to Spain is on my list but as there are so many things to see and do there reading would get in the way. (Huh. Never thought I’d type that. Who knew?) I have both a Kindle and phone apps so any physical books on site would be superfluous unless they were rare. And I don’t see those being made available because some people are assholes and are the reason we can’t have nice things.
Thank you, Carrie. The Literary Man Hotel sounds absolutely wonderful!! I think Óbidos is meant to be a small fortress-town, so even after walking around, you could spend a lot of time indoors surrounded by the books.
🙂
I stayed at the Library Hotel for a romantic weekend almost a decade ago and I can definitely confirm that it the amount it costs for a room is totally reflected in its services and amenities. There was a little balcony off of the room we had and it was so neat. The “romantic getaway” add-on package meant we got two free hotel bathrobes and I still use them to this day. It was so great to do our fun daytime weekend things and then come back to the hotel to feel pampered and relaxed in such plush settings.
The book selection in the Erotic Romance room, though? Not great.
The Sylvia Beach Hotel, a bed and breakfast on the Oregon coast, is a delightful literary hotel. It has about 20 rooms, each themed on an author (many classics, but also some newer ones like Amy Tan and J.K. Rowling). Very comfortable library. Those whole hotel is electronics-free. No wi-fi, no televisions. Just quiet reading.
The link to the Literary Man Hotel returned ‘Bad Gateway’ then the word nginx. No idea what that means, but sounds like an ideal name for a pet iguana.
I’m not sure what’s up with the link. Sometimes it works and sometimes it returns a “bad gateway” error. I’m sorry about that! Maybe we should all pack a bag and travel to ask about the problem personally…and, you know, inspect the hotel?
I would love to stay at the Literary Man! Let’s all go!
I’m surprised that more people haven’t heard about the Sylvia Beach. That’s good, in one sense, since there’s more chance of my booking a room when I need a getaway on the coast. I love the journals they have in each room, where guests write or sketch or comment on earlier guest’s posts. And I love the library on the top floor, where you can look out over the ocean and sip the mulled wine they have on hand and just soak up the atmosphere of books and peace.
You can call ahead to the Library Hotel and they’ll get you the books you want from The Strand bookstore and have them waiting in your room.
This Thursday I will be at a sorta literary hotel! The Biltmore Hotel in Providence opened in 1918, designed by the same architectural firm that did Grand Central Station. Given its history, Rhode Island has never been into Puritanism, and during Prohibition the hotel paid off cops and politicians and mobsters and it was PARTY CENTRAL. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were guests. But mostly I’m excited to stay there because it’s haunted. It was pretty run down when I was a kid in RI (it has since been renovated — I haven’t been there in 25 years) and the ghost of a finance guy who jumped from his room’s window after the stock market crash in 1929 roams the halls. Apparently there are other ghosts too — they turn on TVs and taps and climb on top of sleeping guests in the middle of the night. Providence, of course, is all about HP Lovecraft, so The Biltmore also hosts an annual NecronomiCon, devoted to Lovecraft and weird fiction in general. (“Keep Providence Eldritch!”) https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/croissants-with-cthulhu
Oooo, you need to do something on the Book and Bed Tokyo, where you can actually sleep in beds hidden behind the bookshelves! http://bookandbedtokyo.com/en/
I’m probably being way too librarian-y here, but those aren’t subcategories they’re just room numbers. (For instance, the call number for dinosaurs is something like 568.) So they’re using the main category and then just adding the room number as though it’s part of the call number, probably to make it easier to read. But more to the point I would be very happy to stay at either of these hotels!
I’ve passed by the Library Hotel years ago and I’ve always wanted to stay there. I’m also a crazy plant lady, so the mention of a rooftop greenhouse + books got me really, really excited for this place even more!
I love hearing about bookish hotels. Sadly those are all too far away from where I live. My husband once gifted me a weekend at this hotel: http://www.b2boutiquehotels.com/en/about-us/gallery/
The hotel used to be a brewery, and there is a beautiful library. Look at the pictures! The books are from a second hand bookshop that closed, and since you are not allowed to climb up to the higher rows, they move them around several times a year.
If you want a getaway bookish hotel, check out the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon http://www.sylviabeachhotel.com. It overlooks the Pacific Ocean and each room is themed around a different author. There is also a library with comfortable sofas and chairs where you can watch the waves when not reading. Next to the library is a little coffee nook where you can get coffee or tea and they serve mulled wine every evening. Staying there includes a full breakfast.
It is definitely a getaway place, as there are no TVs or wifi and they discourage cell phones in the public areas.
The Winivian Resort in CT is a resort comprised of really fancy individually themed cottages. One of the cottages that I would LOVE to stay in is their Library themed cottage: https://www.winvian.com/cottages/library/