This month’s Romance Wanderlust involves a place that many of you have mentioned in the comments in the past. I’ve never stayed at Sylvia Beach Hotel, but it seems that many of you have and loved it. This hotel perches on a cliff overlooking the surf at Newport, Oregon, and is specially designed for readers.
Originally called The Cliff House Hotel, the hotel opened in 1909. After having a succession of owners, including one whose dog delivered newspapers to guests, the building became a bus depot and then a rooming house. In 1984 the building went to its current owners who renamed it The Sylvia Beach Hotel in honor of Sylvia Beach, bookseller, publisher, and editor.
One does not simply walk into this hotel just because they happen to have a vacancy and you want to spend a weekend in Newport (although I do highly suggest spending a weekend in Newport, which has a great aquarium). Nor does one go to the Sylvia Beach Hotel to get work done, or to have a place to hose off your kids between beach trips. The hotel is, according to its website, “unsuitable for young children.” Pets are not allowed although there is a resident hotel cat. The rooms don’t have phones, TV’s, or Wi-Fi. Your job is to sit your ass down in front of a big window and look at the ocean and read a book. Alternatively you can sit your ass down in the garden. Whatever. It’s reading time.
Every room is named after an author and is decorated with that author as its theme. Judging from the website, some of these rooms work better thematically than others. The Steinbeck room is decorated with a mural of the Joad’s truck from The Grapes of Wrath. Is decorating a hotel room with a mural about a homeless family in the best of taste? I cautiously suspect not.
HOWEVER, the Jane Austen room is suitably tasteful, and the J.K. Rowling room looks sublime. The Dr. Seuss room is a blast and the Agatha Christie room has clues hidden in it. Best of all, the hotel offers a large breakfast and has a dinner restaurant (“Tables of Content Restaurant”) and a library with giant windows looking out to the sea, and a book collection in case you forgot to bring your own. Ha. Like that would ever happen.
Most people think of the ocean in terms of warm sandy beaches, but as a Northern California native (and also long-time resident of both Oregon and Alaska) the ocean is at its best when it’s cold, rocky, foggy, and blatantly trying to kill you. When I was a kid my parents drove to the Northern California Coast every winter and stayed in hotels with window views of the ocean. Y’all can bask on the warm sand all you want – I like that as well, but I prefer stormy weather, cliffs, foghorns, hot cocoa, a fireplace, a good book, and an excellent window seat.
From what I can tell, the Sylvia Beach Hotel provides these in abundance, as well as a garden for sunny days. And if it’s nice and warm, Nye Beach nearby provides sand to sun yourself on. Best of all worlds!
Judging by their website, it’s a great concept oddly executed. The Alice Walker room in particular I find troublesome. As an American author whose best known works are about the American South/Civil Right era, why the African savannah decor?
I’ve stayed there a couple of times. It’s delightful. And one of the owners, Goody Cable, is a bit of a character. She once gave a speech in a gorilla suit. Why a gorilla suit? It was the only clean thing in her closet.
There used to be a Edgar Allen Poe room. The closet was bricked in and there was a pendulum above the bed that you could turn on or off via a wall switch.
They switch up the rooms over time, changing authors (adding, removing, etc.). And the food at the restaurant was delicious.
sounds like an interesting place
I stayed there in 2004 for two nights and all I remember is dirt, books and cats. There was a fabulous view, but it wasn’t a comfortable place in my opinion, too hostel-like. Newport though is great, my Dad has a place nearby and I love the solitude and wild coastline.
I got married there in 1998. They were the absolute best. I got ready in the Colette room and had a blast deciding which friends went in what rooms. Now I own a bar in Astoria two hours north and started our own feminist theme rooms. I feel like they’re inspired by my wedding at the Sylvia Beach.