Spring in the Berkshires

We turned our clocks back this past Saturday night and many of us, myself included, are in desperate need of that lost hour. The positive part of Daylight Savings Time is that as I sit at my computer writing this blog at 6 pm it is still light out!  This brings up a whole lot of reasons why an escape from your early spring routines with a Rookwood Inn Escape is perfect at this time of year!

The tranquility of our location lends itself to a feeling of complete relaxation. You can meditate, if you want, or add a massage to enhance the relaxation. Pick up that book or magazine you’ve wanted to read for months and actually start, or finish, it. Visit Colorful Stitches in Lenox Village to find that special wool for a project or learn how to create your own work of art and come back to The Rookwood Inn to knit or crochet in front of a cozy fire. Visit Rhythms or Kripalu for a yoga class or workshop. Take a hike and explore flowers, trees, birds and animals awakening from their winter hibernation. Returning birds can be seen (we have a huge pileated woodpecker here at The Rookwood).

Perhaps you prefer culture. Shakespeare & Company is in production, the Berkshire International Film Festival is in swing, and there is always a concert or movie to be found. The Clark Art Museum is open and through May offers free admission to its wonderful exhibits.

We’ve turned our winter special into a Spring in the Berkshires special valid through April. Stay any two nights in a standard or deluxe room for $299 (plus tax and gratuity) or in a mini suite for $499 (plus tax and gratuity). Our delicious breakfasts and afternoon refreshments are included, as is our warm welcoming service.

Whatever the season, you’ll find the reason to visit The Rookwood Inn, Lenox, and the Berkshires!

Bring in the New Year at The Rookwood Inn!

New Year’s Eve carries with it the idea of something very special. Some people go all out to find a special place to have dinner,

perhaps go dancing. Others find a cozy meal at home or with friends to be their special way of celebrating. This year, start a new tradition at  The Rookwood Inn.

Spend two, or three nights including New Year’s Eve at The Rookwood, enjoy the beauty of the Berkshires both inside and out. Go skiing (downhill or cross-country), try snow-shoeing or snowmobiling. Stroll through the unique shops and villages like Lenox and Stockbridge. Enjoy exhibits at the local museums such as the Norman Rockwell or Clark Art Institute or MassMoCA. Take in some music. Savor delicious meals at one of the fine local restaurants. Or spend your time at the inn snuggling in front of a fire, reading, playing a board or card game, or talking with friends  – old or new.

At midnight on New Year’s Eve join us for a dessert and cheese gathering along with a special champagne toast.  Sleep in on New Year’s Day and then join us for our our famous  brunch. Check-out is extended until 2 pm to allow you to have a lazy morning. If you spend three  nights we’ll give you 25% off our New Year’s rates. Two nights, take 10% off.

Rookwood Inn Offers Gift Ideas for the Holidays

Whether or not we want to accept it, the holidays are quickly approaching. Even if we wanted to forget them, the stores and television commercials keep reminding us. Chanukah and Christmas will be here soon! Can’t bear the thought of another tie or pin? Don’t want to buy fuzzy socks or scarves? Look no further.  The Rookwood Inn has some great gift ideas for you – one size fits all – including your budget!

How about a weekend (12/7 & 8 OR 12/8 & 9) at The Rookwood Inn including two tickets to the Lenox Holiday Inn Tour, Choral Festival and Gingerbread House Contest? We’ve wrapped this one just for you with a very special package price of $299 (plus tax and gratuity)!

 If you can’t get away this weekend, a gift certificate make the perfect gift for anyone in your life – a loved one, business associate, good friend, birthday or holiday. You pick the amount of the certificate and we do the rest. We will issue a certificate and mail it to you or the recipient with a note. They can then use it toward any Rookwood getaway, at any time of year and toward any room they wish. As our special holiday gift to you, we’re offering a second gift certificate for you to use however you wish for 10% of the purchased certificate value. This means that if you purchase a $500 gift certificate for Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill, we will send you a certificate for $50 for you to use yourself or gift to someone else.

Should you prefer a smaller gift, Rookwood Inn mugs, bathrobes and cookbooks are available.

Thanksgiving Wishes from The Rookwood Inn

Thanksgiving reminds us to take time out of our busy lives to pause and think about the people and things we are grateful for. At The Rookwood Inn, YOU are at the top of our gratitude lists! Thank you for your continued support of The Rookwood through your visits, your wonderful reviews of your stays, being our Facebook friends, and sharing us with your friends and family. We appreciate your visits, your weddings, your girls weekends away, family reunions, just to name a few of the reasons you come. We love reading your letters and emails and sharing in your lives.

Have you heard about Small Business Saturday? This Saturday, November 24th Guests Receive a $25 Credit for any purchase over $25 made at a participating small business when paying with their American Express card. This can be for a stay this weekend (we’ll make sure to charge your Amex on Saturday the 24th), or for a deposit for any stay in the future, or for a Gift Certificate for a special holiday gift. So, make your reservation or buy a gift certificate on November 24th  and get a $25 credit from American Express. To participate you need to enroll an eligible American Express Card at www.shopsmall.com. The number of enrollments is limited and closes at 11:59 p.m. MST on November 24th, unless the limit is reached earlier. So don’t wait!

This is also a time to be thankful that the summer schedules will soon be available. Stay tuned for the Tanglewood announcement (the link will be both a blog post and a regular e-newsletter) which should be released soon after Thanksgiving. Remember to book your room early to avoid disappointment.

Stay tuned for some exciting winter promotions. We want you to see what we love about the Berkshires this winter!

Bed and Breakfast for Vets – Another Successful Year!

November 11, 2012 was the third time The Rookwood Inn participated in the Bed and Brekfasts for Vets program. Three years ago, we offered 8 rooms at no charge to active, reserve and retired service men and women as a way of saying thank you for their service. Last year we offered 10 rooms. This year, thanks to the generosity of The Rookwood’s employees (Chris Manarchik, Lana Schafer, and Jennifer Kahlenbeck) who donated their time and skills, we offered all 20 rooms at no charge to the service men and women.

It was a wonderful evening and breakfast time here. We had men and women from all branches of the service here. They represented many arenas but shared the common bond of being in the service. Everywhere I turned there were groups of guests sharing their stories and giving each other helpful advice on where to go for services. The sound of laughter and conversation pealed through the inn.

Through my employees’ generosity we were able to provide each room with flowers and candy, a sumptuous display of afternoon refreshments including fresh apple cider and donuts donated by Bartlett’s Orchard of Richmond.

Here is a letter we received from one of our guests:

Dear and staff,

Now-a-days it seems that any letter you receive is someone complaining about one thing or another, but I have the honor of writing to you to say thank you for a wonderful Veteranss Day stay. You, Lana, Chris, Jennifer and Isabel made our stay wonderful and I felt the need to write and tell everyone how much we appreciate all you did. As a Vietnam vet I cannot express how much your kindness means, as the vets from southeast Asia were not viewed as returning heroes, but your hard work makes up for our being slighted. So you should be very proud of all that you and your staff do on Veterans Day and you should be proud of your patriotism and your thoughtfulness.

Please let everyone know that you and the Rookwood Inn made a lot of people very happy and gave us a place to get together and feel comfortable talking about our lives.

Thanks again,
Bill and Sherrie Brassard

 

Lenox Restaurants – Great Places to Dine In Lenox

Lenox Restaurants – here’s a great list

You’ve planned your long-awaited vacation to Lenox. You have your tickets in-hand. Now you need to decide where you will eat. While Lenox is a small village, we are fortunate to have some wonderful dining options within a short walk, or drive, from The Rookwood Inn. The array of Lenox restaurants will meet all gastronomic desires and wallets from a basic pizza restaurant to five star Relais Chateaux properties.

These restaurants are within a few minute walk from The Rookwood Inn. We have noted guest favorites with an asterick.*

• Alta Restaurant & Wine Bar – lunch and dinner menus offering a variety of local and organic ingredients. Their inspired Mediterranean cuisine is always fresh. Extensive wine list featuring selections from around the world, and 24 delicious wines by the glass.
• Bistro Zinc- a modern French bistro in the heart of historic downtown Lenox.
  that boasts fine cuisine and a refined but welcoming atmosphere.
• Cafe Lucia *- regional Italian preparations, local organic produce, natural & organic meats, excellent wines, full bar, intimate dining in indoors or out. Chef owned & operated since 1983.
• Church Street Cafe*- American Bistro featuring fresh & local products. Outdoor dining. Full bar with extensive wine list and a variety of local beers.
• Firefly *- Vibrant, chef-owned Church Street landmark with ever-changing new American Bistro menus served in its beautiful dining rooms, tavern menu.
• Frankie’s Ristorante Italiano* – Real, home-made Italian food like your Italian grandmother (real or imagined) used to make.
• Gateways* – creative and Contemporary American dishes  utilizing the finest and freshest products available each season. Prix-fixe menu for dinner; late night Piano Bar with a la carte offerings. New owners.
• Haven Cafe and Bakery *- where the priority is food and community. With a mission to offer high quality food and excellent service to all their guests – whether it be a fresh cup of great coffee to go, a healthy delicious lunch to sit down with, a tasty life enhancing meal to take home or  a catered event for dozens of friends and family. Supporting a big team of local organic farmers, environmentally conscious and epicurious distributors.
• Prime Italian Steakhouse* – Featuring prime cuts with an array of Italian specialties. Striking glass bar, magnificent wine list, late-night menu after Tanglewood.
• Nudel* – a creative American pasta bar which takes its inspiration from the bounty provided by the local farms and producers of Berkshire County. Whenever possible, they use local, organic, ethical and natural ingredients.
• Olde Heritage Tavern – local “watering hole” featuring great burgers and “pub” food.
• Rumplestilizkin’s – seasonally-changing dinner menu supplemented with daily specials to take advantage of the freshest available ingredients. Colonial-inspired dishes, such as Shaker-Style Cranberry Pot Roast and Roasted Duck mix with perennial gourmet favorites, such as Filet Mignon and Fresh Salmon.  After dinner, try Rumpy’s for a nightcap.
• Shots Cafe – casual ambiance featuring cold sandwiches, paninis, salads & more. Mochas, smoothies & gelato.
• Spoon* – casual restaurant open for breakfast & lunch daily featuring local, organic, natural and ethical ingredients. Evening hours for organic ice cream. Owner, Danielle, started her career at age 14 at The Rookwood Inn.

Just a short drive from The Rookwood,  you’ll find the following Lenox restaurants:

• Blantyre* – Zagat survey states, “Savor exquisite New American-French cuisine, served with old-world elegance.”
• Chocolate Springs Cafe* – European-style chocolate confectionary with delicious desserts. Artisanal chocolates including truffles, pralines, tea infusions & sensual confections. Serious hot & cold chocolate.
• Cranwell* – a variety of dining experiences in multiple restaurants: Wyndhurst Music Room, Sloane’s Tavern & more.
• Jae’s of Lenox*- pan Asian cuisine with delicacies from Korea, Japan and Thailand.
• Jonathan’s Bistro – Seasonally fresh menu.
• Trattoria “Il Vesuvio”* – A tastee of Italy in the Berkshires. Fine Italian cuisine.
• Wheatleigh* – sophisticated 5 Diamond restaurant with lovely setting. Elegant prix-fixe dinners in the main dining room and more casual dining in The Library.

If you’re looking for just ice cream, frozen yogurt or a picnic to take to Tanglewood (or elsewhere) you might want to try one of these Lenox restaurants or food purveyors:

• The Scoop – Sweets cafe offering SoCo icecream, frozen yogurt, smoothies, candy, & bakend goods. Coffee, wraps & soup.

Welcome to Rookwood Ramblings!

Welcome to the first Rookwood Rambings Blog. For those of you who’ve been Rookwood friends and family for a while the name, Rookwood Ramblings, isn’t new. It has been the name of our newsletter (remember when it was printed and mailed out?) and then our email version. Being a creature of habit, I decided not to mess with tradition. The newsletter will be e-Ramblings and will continue to be emailed to our loyal followers up to 6 times a year. The Ramblings Blog will be posted on a more regular schedule, hopefully weekly. 

The purpose of the blog will be to communicate with you on a more personal level. I plan to share some of the local charm, lore, charater and events in a way not possible in a newsletter. I will share news of what’s happening, new openings, shows, restaurant reviews and more of my opinions than I normally do. If you have ideas of what you’d like to see featured, email me. I’ll try to incorporate as many of our readers’ ideas as possible.

It is absolutely incredulous to me that as I write this post on March 23, 2012, I am sitting  the front porch (veranda) of the Inn. The sun is bright and the temperature is almost 70 degrees! It is mind blowing to imagine a more beautiful 3rd day of spring. Our daffodils have bloomed (something I’ve never seen before in the Berkshires!). The rhododendron buds are bursting forth. Forsythia is blooming all around us! Chris, my assistant innkeeper, had dusted off the porches, removed the wicker and cushions from their winter cocoons and brought them onto the porches. The wooden benches have been restored  to their rightful places on the front lawn. In short, The Rookwood and its inhabitants (animate and inanimate) are awakening from a brief winter slow-down and are ready for our guests to return!

There are two exciting events which will be happening in and around Lenox. I’m going to mention them now and then detail them in other posts. The first is the  Berkshire Cycling Classic a 62 or 81 mile bike race starting in Lenox and winding through picturesque southern Berkshire County on May 6. The other event is the Berkshire British Car Show. If you or anyone you know loves British cars like MGs, Austin Healey’s, Rolls Royces, Bentleys or anything British then Father’s Day weekend (June 9 and 10) is the time to come to Lenox. Call us for special offers both weekends!