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Stone Manor: Eau de tranquility
Any good bed and breakfast will offer you a pleasant place to stay – bonus points if there's history involved. They all aim to give you a good meal, too, and it's to be expected that the hosts will offer a warm welcome and good conversation.
Not many, though, will have prepared for you to the point of personally making your soap and shampoo, by hand, out of all organic materials.
And not many will tailor it to your skin type and to your mood, choosing which scent to give you to either calm you down, perk you up, soothe you or any number of other desired effects.
Not many are prepared – if you're particularly frazzled -- to pull out jars of powders in various fragrances and offer you a facial.
At Stone Manor in Lovettsville, the owners mean it when they say they want to give everyone a little love.
Stone Manor, at the foot of the Short Hill mountain, certainly has the luxury and physical charm required of a B&B. The original part of the home was built in 1908; current owners Spencer Ault and Beth Van Houtte have renovated and expanded it.
When you enter the main door, you step into the hub of the home under a soaring ceiling. Just beyond the entryway is the stately dining area, where hot water and a dozen or so kinds of tea await at any time of day – the first hint of hospitality.
To the right, the kitchen, a parlor and the East Wing guest suite take up most of the footprint of the original house. This part of the house, surrounded by two-foot-thick stone walls, has been brought gently into modernity, with its original charm intact. Modern fittings never looked warmer than they do in this cozy kitchen, where you are invited to "play" with the hostess, and perhaps learn to make jam or wine with fruits you've just picked from the organic garden.
The home has six guest suites, each with a spacious bathroom -- several of which boast Jacuzzi tubs and two-person, 10-spray showers. The lovingly appointed bathrooms have almost a sitting-room feel.
Of the guest rooms, the East Wing suite ($110 per night) is the smallest, but it has plenty of old-fashioned charm, enhanced by pocket doors that open to the roomy private bath. The largest of the guest quarters is the sumptuous 1,200-square-foot Manor suite upstairs ($325 per night), with its four-post canopy bed, Chinese-silk couches, kitchenette and a 17-by-20-foot bathroom larger than many homes' bedrooms.
The home is tastefully decorated -- though never cluttered -- with antique furniture and artwork, including a sizable stained-glass collection, plus some items handmade by Van Houtte.
The house is lovely. But the real joy of Stone Manor is the personal touch and the pride and pleasure Van Houtte – who is also an engineer – and Ault – an attorney – take in sharing their home with others, talking and working with them, and giving them a pleasant stay, and a healthful one.
Stone Manor is known for its bountiful breakfasts, and as much of the food as possible comes from Van Houtte's garden. Eggs arrive fresh from chickens who wander around outdoors -- all of which have names and some of which will jump into Van Houtte's arms for a cuddle. And the handmade, deliciously scented soaps are free of sodium lauryl sulfate and the other harsh and carcinogenic chemicals found in most commercial soaps. Because at Stone Manor, you're not nourishing your guests if you're giving them carcinogens to bathe with.
On a recent Wednesday morning, Van Houtte showed visitors how she makes her soaps. Her simplest soaps start as bars of glycerin or a goat's milk base, chopped into pieces and heated into creaminess. From overflowing boxes, she chooses molds and natural dyes and organic fragrances.
Soap making turns into a leisurely all-morning affair, with Van Houtte popping mini quiches and homemade bread into the oven and mixing up a barley salad in between the steps of soap preparation.
Pouring, mixing, chatting over lunch – time seems to stand still. All too soon, it's time to head out the door and back up Mountain Road, Van Houtte offering to whip up some bath salts for the road.
Back to real life. But the scent of the soap lingers as a reminder of the oasis of stately calm that is Stone Manor.
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