Dear Friends,

Back in our home state of Pennsylvania, they’re celebrating today because Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow and that means spring should be there in another six weeks. Here in Ashland, signs of spring are already here. The daphne odorata is getting ready to join the witch hazel and camellias with its annual dazzling show and the croci are up and about. We just signed on to our Community Supported Agriculture share for the year, which will ensure your plates are adorned with only the freshest, most local and organic food we can procure. Continue reading →

Dear Friends of Anne Hathaway’s:

Greetings from Ashland, where the curtain has gone down on the 2009 season. The plays have closed and the winter rains have arrived. The actors took flight (after many of them attended the wedding of Christine Albright and John Tufts, whom many of you will recall played opposite each other in Romeo and Juliet), and so did the innkeepers at Anne Hathaway’s. Continue reading →

Dear Friends of Anne Hathaway’s:

Happy New Year to all — including the award-winning actress with the same name as Shakespeare’s wife (for whom we sometimes get calls).

Our first family Christmas holiday in Mexico was most restorative. We’re feeling refreshed and ready to repair and replace what needs to be and renew old friendships.

But before we talk about the future, we need to take a moment to reflect on the recent past. In November, we held a gala 100th birthday party for the house. The Sunday afternoon reception for our neighbors, fellow innkeepers, vendors, farmers and Ashland friends was well received (Mail Tribune article). As part of that celebration, we drew names of guests who stayed with us last year who win one night’s stay this year for $19.08. Continue reading →

Dear Friends of Anne Hathaway’s,

As 2008 commences, we pause now to celebrate our good health, our amazing and wonderful family and a veritable battalion of good friends. In the latter category, we count many of you whom we have come to know during our six seasons as the innkeepers here at Anne Hathaway’s, as well as many others in our adopted community of Ashland.

The new year brings – a blare of the trumpets, please – the 100th anniversary of the building we all know as Anne Hathaway’s Cottage at 586 East Main Street. Since beginning its life as a boarding house for railroad and lumber workers, it’s had many iterations. At one time it was even the temporary home of the Ashland Community Hospital, replacing a facility destroyed by fire. Our guest Linda Bean Wood’s family lived in the house just after World War II; she stayed in the same room to which she was brought home from Ashland Community Hospital. Continue reading →

Dear Friends of Anne Hathaway’s,

Lo, now the theatre season has ended for 2005. Richard III has stumbled for the last time, the moose head in Room Service has been sent back to the attic, Belle’s Stratagem is on hold, maybe for another 150 years. And at Anne Hathaway’s the scone count stands at 3,094 for the year. And, we are treating ourselves to a short break.

But we want you to take a bow for making this our best season yet. Just by coming here you honor us and your kind comments while here provide tonic for our souls that gets us through all those scones and sheets. Your great suggestions for improvements form the basis of a long winter’s To Do list. Continue reading →

Dear Friends,

It’s drizzled and it’s frizzled too, this Spring. We’ve had just about a little bit of everything, beginning with 80-degree days in March and now snow the morning of April 12th. We went up Mt. Grizzly a few days ago looking for some wildflowers and instead almost got stuck in the snow. Hattie’s head was the only thing left of her once she left the trail, our dear brown snow angel.

As the roots of our 2004 expansion have sunk deeper on both sides of East Main Street, we’ve made a decision about how we want to be known, eliminating the word “cottage” from our lexicon altogether. Know us now, please, as Anne Hathaway’s B&B and Garden Suites. The reason for this change was not so much truth in advertising (our house is simply not a cottage), nor an effort to cover up the fact that there really are two cottages across the street that are ours. It just seemed that we were spending endless minutes on the phone explaining to people that we really weren’t exactly a cottage, that they wouldn’t have one of their own, that the cottages didn’t have any common space and so on. So now we’re calling them what they are. Please come see. Continue reading →

Dear Friends,

Fall is upon us. People are coming to breakfast wearing fleece. The theater starts earlier, our teenage helpers are changing classes instead of beds and the evening temperatures drop into the 40s and 50s. Grapes and plums are falling off the trees before we have a chance to pick them. We have rooms for those who haven’t been here yet, or for those who want to squeeze in a few more plays.

Now more than ever do we have rooms!

As those of you who have visited in person or seen our website — www.ashlandbandb.com — know, we’ve expanded. With the purchase of two small cottages with seven rooms known as the All’s Well Guest Houses, we’ve become Anne Hathaway’s Cottages. Continue reading →

Dear Friends of Anne Hathaway’s Cottage,

What a glorious Ashland spring we’ve had! Dazzling displays of pinks and creams and yellows, not to mention the rosy quince, have played prelude for the lilacs, lilies and iris now in the wings. Our garden is repaying all our efforts, daffodilling, grape hyacinthing and rosemarying in abundance. Gaps where the ghastly old storage shed and the apple tree stood at opposite sides of the back are just about to be filled. We suspect the shag-bark maple tree will be a glory to behold compared to the bee-laden rotten (to its core!) apple, the cutting down of which in true Ashland fashion required a city permit, neighborhood consensus and a detailed replacement plan. Continue reading →

Dear Friends of Anne Hathaway’s Cottage,

It’s getting cool in the evenings, the leaves on the red maple beside the driveway are beginning to turn, the ducks in Lithia Park are wearing their brilliant winter coats and the Oregon Shakespeare Theatre’s 2003 season will soon be part of OSF history. We’ve lost count of how many breakfasts we’ve served, but are pleased to report that nearly all of them were eaten! Continue reading →

Dear Friends of Anne Hathaway’s Cottage,

Greetings from Ashland. The sweet smell of Daphnis Ordorata in the yard is making us swoon, the opening of the Shakespeare Festival season is stimulating our minds and the near completion of our winter construction project is pleasing to behold.

February found us welcoming some Valentine Day revelers, a few new members of the Snow Shoe and Cross Country Ski Club and two of Deedie’s childhood friends – one of whom was commissioned by the Harrisburg, PA Patriot-News to write a travel story about Ashland and former Harrisburgers-turned-Oregon innkeepers.

In the last two weeks, we’ve previewed all four shows currently on stage and can guarantee you that provocative drama, fabulous acting and leading-edge theatre is in rich supply here this year. The San Francisco Chronicle says the Festival had its strongest opening weekend in years. Snippets from reviews are attached. Continue reading →