Except that, oops, Vermont this is not. This is New Jersey. Summit, N.J., to be exact, a leafy bedroom community (and Meryl Streep’s birthplace!) about 30 minutes west of the Big Apple. It’s not really country, either, although it was, once. Definitely back in the 1860s, when wealthy New Yorkers began flocking to the village on a hill (Summit, get it?) to enjoy the cooler summer air and the quieter pace of life. And the Blackburn House, the original resort on the spot where the Grand Summit now stands.
The hotel literature uses that real estate convergence to claim a 150-year pedigree, but the present imposing Tudor-style red-brick building dates only from 1929. So bingo! I’ve hit the period feel on the nose. That’s gratifying. Ditto the fact that the owners have managed to retain that feel despite an ongoing $1.5 million renovation.
It’s subtly done, I think, admiring the beautiful contemporary oil paintings and the ornate hanging lamps in the hallway as we head to our first-floor room. Where subtlety is truly the order of the day.
If the room’s been upgraded — it’s one of 42 Summit Club rooms, designed to “offer a modern touch in a historic environment” — it’s a little hard to tell. It’s a good size, and pretty enough, with freshly painted green walls and a brand-new flat-screen TV. The queen-size bed is clothed in the ubiquitous white hotel linens (yawn), but wait! It’s topped (yay!) with a folded counterpane in a mauve check pattern. Our “closet,” however, is just a curtained-off mini-nook near the door, and the view from the picture window is onto a you-can’t-get-there-from-here (darn!) covered porch and a paved lot beyond. And the shower-only bathroom, though spiffily freshened up with handsome tumbled stone tiles, is so teensy that my husband keeps bumping his elbow into the wall while shaving.
Still, it gives me ideas for a mini-bath we’re redoing at home. And you know? This hotel is so cool, I can live with not hanging up any clothes for a night. And don’t worry, dear, that bruise will heal in no time! Let’s have a drink in the tavern and you’ll forget all about it.
The basement-level Hat Tavern, opened in January, is a tip of the, um, hat to the words worked into the pattern of raised bricks (intended as songbird perches, assistant general manager Michael Marino tells me) on the hotel facade: “HAT” and “HOTEL,” along with the outline of a wine goblet. Actually, the first word was originally “HATT,” after the hotel’s first owner, but apparently the second owner, one Harry A. Taylor, had the second “T” chipped away. That left just his initials, see? Isn’t it funny how that worked out?
Carrying on with that initial thing, the tavern features H-amburgers, A-les and T-apas (well, if you call buffalo wings and fried calamari tapas), which is not to my husband’s liking. “It’s all fried foods,” he complains, scouring the menu for a ritzier dish. He would have been happier if the tavern were still the Hunt Club, the stuffier former restaurant where “they’d be here in ties and all,” says our bartender, rolling her eyes.
But there’s a duck breast special tonight, so we order and ... everything’s fabulous! The presentation’s elegant, the food’s delicious, hubby is delighted! I’m taken with all the striking paintings; the space doubles as a gallery showcasing New York art — at New York prices. I love that sharp focus still life of watermelons, but $3,000? Pass, thanks.
We take a stroll outdoors to check out the neighborhood (residential, pretty) and more art on the front lawn. I’m snapping some photos when my husband calls out, “Look!” Up on the hotel roof, a figure looms over the parapet as if about to leap or fall onto the porte-cochere below. It’s a beat before I realize that it’s not real — just another art installation, three silver-colored, space-alien-like shapes crawling around on the rooftop.
So madcap. Just like a 1930s movie.
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