With deep distress, my husband remembers his grandfather checking into a modest hotel in the Catskills and then driving down the road to spend the day at the much tonier Grossinger's resort. Then a young boy, my husband would sink low in the back seat as his grandfather would arrive at the gated entry and tell security that they were visiting the Cohens -- always a safe-bet name at Grossinger's, the preeminent Jewish resort of its day.
I can understand someone seeing the parallels between that and what I did last week at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa in Farmington, Pa. But it was nothing like that.
As a $69-a-night Holiday Inn guest who'd paid for a spa treatment at Nemacolin Woodlands, I was entitled to a full day of lounging on a thickly padded chaise near the resort's indoor pool with its vaulted glass ceiling, to say nothing of the sauna, whirlpool, steam room and outdoor hot tubs on the spa deck.
Buying time at the shooting range gave me as much legitimacy on the glorious grounds as a guy who landed on the resort's private air strip and paid $3,000 a night for the presidential suite in the resort's Chateau LaFayette.
The other difference between me and my husband's grandfather: I didn't check into the Holiday Inn first. Okay, maybe I'm splitting hairs. But driving from Washington, before you hit the chain motels of Uniontown, you come upon the resort. You might as well stop to eat and scope out how you'll spend the money saved by sleeping somewhere else.
The resort has a restaurant option for every budget. Luckily I didn't know that and headed straight for the Golden Trout, an elegant restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking some of the resort's 1,500 acres.
Spending $19 for lunch gave me a sense that I deserved to walk around the Lodge and the Chateau LaFayette, the two hotel options.
Once owned by Cordelia Mellon Scaife, with all the connections that those two last names imply, the resort was bought by Joseph A. Hardy III in 1987. Since then Hardy, founder of the 84 Lumber Co., has transformed the place, using it to display his huge and eclectic art collection. If you visited five years ago, you might not recognize it today.
Narrated art tours are offered daily, but I began my personal tour alone in the Lodge lobby. A Remington cowboy statue sits on a round table in front of a great stone fireplace. A catalogue available in the lobby shop notes that the statue at my fingertips was obtained through Sotheby's. It was the closest I'd ever been to a Remington, or anything else sold by Sotheby's.
The Lodge lobby alone is an eye feast. Bronze dogs cast in 1900 flank the fireplace. Original Tiffany lamps light the room, which is furnished with huge leather chairs and antiques. An exquisite silver turkey sculpture graces a side table.
It's better than a museum, not only because a museum would put some of this stuff behind glass but because you can enjoy it as you go about your business or lounge by the fire, as you would if you happened to be a billionaire with taste.
Without a boss to report to, you could hang a Tony Bennett painting he'd given you near a chichi still life, or an old French wardrobe shaped like a fat Brittany housewife.
It's like the countryside manor house of a duke, and I felt comfortable there in casual clothes. Actually, you could probably be wearing a hunting vest and have a couple of dead pheasants sticking out of your pockets and not feel out of place. The Lodge would be my choice if I returned to Nemacolin to ski (downhill or cross-country).
Chateau LaFayette, opened in 1997, is another story. Baccarat-style crystal chandeliers reflect off marble floors. Original Versace chairs grace the lobby, so beautiful you understand that, despite the lack of forbidding ribbons across the arms, it would be a shame to actually sit in one.
"Punch," an 1875 statue once part of Andy Warhol's personal collection, is exhibited, along with original lithographs by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, paintings and mobiles by Alexander Calder, and Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan artifacts.
The Chateau's upscale elegance is reflected in its prices: In season, the cheapest room for a weekend night is $350. Yet compared to hotels in major cities, the prices don't seem so out of line.
If money is no object, or you've saved for a special event, enjoy. If you don't have the cash, consider this: You can sleep with the have-a-littles and hang with the haves. For the price of a room in the Lodge, I paid for the Holiday Inn, got a great haircut, ate in an exquisite setting, savored the spa, spent an afternoon on the shooting range and had almost enough left over for a horse-drawn surrey ride for four.
Before sunset, I began my gorgeous drive down the mountain from the resort to the valley. On the way, I decided to have dinner at the Historic Summit Inn. It was a great choice, and I'm glad I beat the Nov. 10 deadline for its seasonal closing.
The lobby and dining room with views of the mountains and valley remain as they were when the resort opened in 1907. The pork chops in applejack brandy were the best pork chops I've ever had, and as a person of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, I've had a lot of pork chops.
Then it was off to the Holiday Inn, where I immediately noticed that the paintings on the walls are the kind -- well, the kind you'd buy at a weekend art auction at the Holiday Inn. But the rooms are built around an indoor swimming pool and a large play area for kids.
While asleep, I had no idea where I was, except that my subconscious might have been registering the skimpy pillows.
With reservations already set, I headed back to the resort the next morning for the signature spa treatment: the $45 Water Path Ritual. Pressure points on the feet are massaged by pebbles that line alternating paths of hot and cold knee-deep water. The fluctuating water temperatures are intended to stimulate circulation.
Next, I lounged into a deep Jacuzzi with hot water and mineral salts from the Sarvar Springs of Hungary. The treatment ends with a Swiss shower of water from a dozen shower heads.
In just 25 minutes, I felt as relaxed as a wet noodle, or perhaps in my case, a soggy blintz.
In a thick spa robe, I proceeded to the pool, where a couple other blintzes were enjoying the feeling of utter relaxation. Eventually, I walked into the waters, my tiny splashing sounds the only ones in the room.
A health-food restaurant where a meal-sized salad costs about $6.50 is at the spa entrance. You can lunch there without changing out of your robe. It occurred to me then that I should have planned to try out the shooting range before my spa treatment. Never mind: Paying for a treatment gave me free rein in the spa all day, and I could return to bask in an outdoor hot tub.
I had considered horseback riding, or the Adventure Center with its climbing wall, in-line skating and obstacle course. Then again, I could get hurt, and shooting skeet was entirely new to me.
With an appointment made two days earlier, I filled my borrowed shooting vest with shotgun shells and got in a golf cart with instructor Larry Orawiec.
I didn't really expect to hit a skeet. But Larry was a patient instructor, and suddenly I was blowing skeets to smithereens.
I immediately regressed to the days when I owned a coonskin hat and a fringed leather jacket that I loved so much I slept in it. It infected the site of my smallpox vaccine, so that my mother first cut a hole in the jacket sleeve, and when that didn't work, burned the whole thing. I was blowing skeet to hell and remembering how, even 40 years later, I'm still mad about that jacket.
You'll be glad to know I returned the gun. Later, after a superb dinner in the resort's fancy French bistro, which my Holiday Inn "savings" did not cover, I sat in an outdoor hot tub on a starry, starry autumn night, and relaxed.
DETAILS: Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa
GETTING THERE: Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa is in Farmington, Pa., about 185 miles from downtown Washington in southwest Pennsylvania. From the Beltway, take I-270 to I-70 west and I-40 west; watch for the welcome sign on the right.
WHERE TO STAY: Nemacolin (800-422-2736, www.nemacolin.com) has three lodging alternatives, and rates drop between Nov. 1 and April 21. During that time, doubles at the elegant but homey Lodge begin at $160 midweek, $225 weekends and holidays. At the posher Chateau LaFayette, doubles start at $195 midweek, $315 weekends. Town houses that are a short drive from the main property start at $150 midweek, $225 weekends.
Drastically cut Web prices are available on short notice. Click on "special deals" at the resort Web site. You can also sign up to be e-mailed during sales.
Individual spa treatments range from $45 to $195, and various packages are available.
Nearby options includethe Hampton, Holiday and Fairfield Inns in Uniontown, the closest major town, about 23 miles west of the resort. Rates start at just over $50. Call the visitors bureau or check its Web site (see below) for details.
Even closer to the resort: Quiet House B&B (800-784-8187), where doubles start at $79. Doubles at the Stone House (800-274-7138) begin at $75, but consider a higher-priced room away from Route 40. My favorite alternative, the Historic Summit Inn (724-438-8594), closes for the season Nov. 10 and reopens in May. Rooms begin at $79 weekdays, $99 weekends. A room with a view doesn't cost extra, so request one.
WHERE TO EAT: Nemacolin has four restaurants (one for every budget), with sandwiches and pasta beginning at $8 at the Tavern, and entrees at Lautrec, a gourmet French bistro, ranging from $27 to $32.
Just down the road, entrees at the Stone House range from $8 to $22, and similar prices for American-style cuisine are offered at the Historic Summit Inn. Uniontown has every fast food known to man, and the visitor's bureau features a fine dining section on its site and in brochures.
OTHER ATTRACTIONS: Two Frank Lloyd Wright homes, Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob, are nearby and open to the public. Renovations begin at Fallingwater in December; $50 appointment-only construction tours conducted until work is complete. Details: 724-329-8501, www.paconserve.org.
The national battlefield Fort Necessity (724-329-5512, www.nps.gov/fone; $2) and Laurel Caverns (800-515-4150, www.laurelcaverns.com; $9) are a few miles from the resort, as is Ohiopyle State Park. Paintball battles in the woods, boating and whitewater rafting are favored fair weather activities.
INFORMATION: Laurel Highlands Visitors Bureau, 724-238-5661, www.laurelhighlands.org.
-- Cindy Loose
