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Newport Abigail Stoneman Inn “Menus” for pillows, bathing and tea, and a “water bar.” These one-of-a-kind luxury amenities distinguish Newport’s most deluxe small B&B, opened by the Cliffside Inn and its expanding Legendary Inns of Newport group. The 1866 Renaissance-style Victorian is notable not so much for the five accommodations, sumptuous as they are, what with its legendary art theme (here 75 artworks of Newport women, in honor of Abigail Stoneman, Newport’s first female innkeeper), high-style Victorian antique furnishings, kingsize beds, fireplaces, two-person whirlpool tubs, steam baths and media centers concealed behind mirrors or in armoires. But rather for the complimentary “amenities menus” that elevate personalized room service to the next level. Even guests who have – and expect – everything probably don’t have some of these. The pillow menu offers guests twenty styles of pillows from a collection worth more than $10,000. There are wool, anti-snoring, maternity, magnetic therapy buckwheat hull and who-knows-what-all pillows. We tried the mediflow water pillow and the head cradle, but quickly reverted to the four perfectly adequate pillows already on the bed. For bathing in some of the most glamorous whirlpool-tub settings you’ll find, the British Penhaligon amenities would suffice anywhere else. Here you can supplement them with a choice of 30 imported soaps, bath salts, foams and oils from halfway around the world. The leftovers go home in a soap “doggy bag.” The inn’s J.B. Finch Pub is a water bar, offering 25 of the world’s best bottled waters – a selection of which you’ll also find in the entry hall and in your room. The inn went through 120 cases of the trendy Voss artesian water from Norway in its first five months. We went home with a couple of the distinctive containers for other uses. And then there are the teas, an exceptional offering of 40 kinds, available around the clock and sometimes taken in a cozy Tea for Two Room off the entry hall. The afternoon tea service was cited as one of nineteen best in America in the 2002 book, The Great Tea Rooms of America. It’s served daily at 4:30 in the parlor, accompanied by a changing feast of savories and sweets equal to those of the finest restaurants. Breakfast is another gourmet event, taken at individual tables in the parlor or, by most, in their rooms. Ours culminated in an asparagus, ham and tomato omelet, expertly prepared and served by the charming William, known across Newport as Billy Rose, an ex-shoeshine boy who danced professionally with Martha Graham and the Alvin Ailey troupe. He “came with the house,” having worked at the former James B. Finch House before the B&B ascended to a higher level. How high? An early entry in the inn’s guest book extolled: “Nothing can compare, only dreams.”
(401) 847-1811 or (800) 845-1811. Fax (401) 848-5850. E-mail: innkeeper@legendaryinnsofnewport.com For more information: www.abigailstonemaninn.com and www.legendaryinnsofnewport.com Material excerpted from Getaways for Gourmets in the Northeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2006. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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