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Idaho’s Often Overlooked Sawtooth Mountains

Near the Oregon border, the Sawtooth Mountains are 10,000 foot peaks that are just as majestic as the Tetons, but with 1/10th the traffic. Fly into Sun Valley (1-hour drive) or Boise (3-hour drive) and make your way to the Idaho Rocky Mountain Ranch, a vacation retreat for close to eight decades. Then get ready to play. Immerse yourself in the stunning surroundings by climbing 1700 feet to shimmering Sawtooth Lake, the “crown jewel” of the Valley. In July, the wildflowers are at their peak, and you can find lupine, sego lilies, Indian paintbrush, shooting stars, blue penstemon and many others. The region is also known for epic mountain biking, hooking brookies, rainbow, and cutthroat trout, rafting on the nearby Salmon River, and this being a ranch, guided half-day and full-day horseback riding adventure. Afterwards, you can soak yourself in the hot spring-fed pool, before dinners of elk, salmon, and Dungeness crab from the Washington coast. At night, people gather on the outdoor patio to gaze at the sparkling sky and listen to foot-stomping live music. This is mountain living at its best. 

 
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Ocean Edge Resort Unveils New Presidential Bay Collection

Driving along Route 6A in Brewster, it’s hard to miss Boston banker Samuel Nickerson’s turn-of-the-century mansion. Today, it’s the centerpiece of the sprawling Ocean Edge Resort. Nickerson’s beachfront estate is now home to over 400 guest rooms and townhouses. The latest addition is the Presidential Bay Collection, 31 two and three-bedroom villas with full kitchen and easy walking distance to the beach. Add six pools, the 18-hole Jack Nicklaus redesigned golf course, nine tennis courts, and bike paths that connect easily to the Cape Cod Rail Trail, and you understand why Ocean Edge has been the perennial family favorite on the Cape for decades. I’m heading there today to review the new Presidential Bay Collection for The Boston Globe. I’ll be back on Monday. Have a great weekend and stay active!

 
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Lapa Rios Signs 900-Acre Conservation Easement

At the southernmost coast of that ecotourism hub, Costa Rica, a 1040-acre rainforest called the Lapa Rios preserve perches over the Pacific Ocean, offering the best of both worlds. You can spend the morning hiking along the Carbonera River to a pristine waterfall, accompanied by four types of monkeys, macaws, and those rainbow-colored toucans. In the afternoon, sea kayak in the ocean around Matapalo Point or surf the Golfo Dulce. The 16 open-air bungalows and main lodge of the Lapa Rios Ecolodge are no tent-in-the-woods accommodation. Hardwood floors, bamboo walls, and a vaulted thatched roof ceiling provide plenty of space and privacy. Other luxuries include soft mosquito netting over the queen-sized bed and a secluded garden shower.  
 
Former Peace Corp volunteers Karen and John Lewis built the retreat in 1990 as a way to save hundreds of acres of rainforest from farming. The owners have just signed a conservation easement that protects over 900 acres of land surrounding Lapa Rios in perpetuity. It prohibits all extractive activities, such as mining, forestry and hunting, as well as further building expansion, even putting a cap on trail construction. At the same time the easement encourages both scientific and educational activities on the reserve. All those monkeys and birds that wake you up in the morning are a tribute to their brilliant success. 
 
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Fogo Island Inn Set to Open in June

Nine miles off the northeastern coast of Newfoundland lies Fogo Island, a barren land of marsh and lichen-covered rock where salt houses cling to the shoreline. In early summer, herds of caribou graze while icebergs and whales float by. When cod was king, the island was bursting with activity. But after the moratorium on fishing cod in the 1990s, the population dwindled to 2700, seemingly lost to the world. Then something remarkable, almost Dr. Seuss-like, happened. A woman who grew up on the island, Zita Cobb, created a philanthropy called The Shorefast Foundation with her brother, Tony. Not only would they offer microloans to small local businesses, they were intent on revitalizing the island through the arts. Cobb founded the Fogo Island Arts Corporation in 2008, hiring another former native, architect Todd Saunders, a rising star on the Norwegian architectural scene. Saunders would create ultramodern, angular art studios that would garner attention from numerous publications, including The New York Times. Now the philanthropist and architect have teamed up again to debut a 29-room inn that will open in June. Drive one hour from Gander, Newfoundland, to Farewell and board the 45-minute Fogo Island ferry. Cost is $415 to $720 per room, including breakfast, dinner, afternoon tea, supper, snacks, and all beverages, including premium wines and spirits.

 
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Maine Island Getaway

Impeccably restored in 2004, Chebeague Island Inn, perched above the shores of Casco Bay’s largest island, never seemed to catch on with mainlanders. That was until the summer of 2010 when Mainer Casey Prentice and his family purchased the circa-1920 estate and instilled the property with a much-needed dose of youthful enthusiasm. Word spread quickly about Chef Justin Rowe, who trained at the White Barn Inn in Kennebunkport, and knows how to create tasty dishes from local catch. Now Portlanders think nothing of taking the 15-minute water taxi or ferry to Chebeague for cocktails on the wraparound porch, dinner, even an overnight stay in one of the 21 rooms found in the three-story home. New this summer is s the Inn’s Farm-to-Table Package where guests can taste the island’s local agriculture. Foodies will also enjoy the Lobster Experience Package that allows guests to join a Maine lobsterman for a two-hour, educational excursion around Casco Bay. Afterwards, the inn will purchase the freshly caught crustaceans and prepare a classic lobster dinner with all the fixings. Rooms start at $180 a night.
 
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Plaza Athenee Turns 100

Sleep deprived after our overseas flight into Paris, my family stepped under the signature red awning into the lobby of the Plaza Athenee and exhaustion was immediately replaced with a deep sense of comfort and relaxation. It wasn’t only the doorman who carried in your luggage.  No, it was the man behind the reception desk stating that our room was already available at this early hour, and the nearby concierge, standing at a desk twice as large as the reception area, already helping us with dinner reservations and museum passes. Then a woman escorted us upstairs to our room, a stately suite, where the antique rugs and furniture blended with the latest technology like flatscreen televisions. We opened up the French country windows to see a garden box planted with flowers. To our right was the Eiffel Tower standing in all its glory. Everything was bliss.

 
When the Plaza Athenee opened its doors on April 20, 1913, it quickly became the place to be for the Parisian personalities of the day. Maurice Chevalier, Josephine Baker and Rudolph Valentino made the crimson-trimmed palace their Parisian hot spot of choice. So did the fashion icon Christian Dior, who became so infatuated with the hotel, he opened his new boutique on the same street. Luminaries kept coming: Grace Kelly, Gary Cooper, Jackie Kennedy, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, and more. As it celebrates its 100th birthday, the hotel just gets better with age. You can read my full review of the property at FamilyVactionCritic. 
 
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Connecticut’s Water’s Edge Resort & Spa Unveils 20 New Villas

Smack dab between New York and Boston on the Connecticut coast, the Water’s Edge Resort first made its debut in 1946. Over the years, the beachfront property has earned a reputation for excellent service and top-notch entertainment, attracting such performers as Barbara Streisand and Woody Allen. Entertainment is still at the forefront of this Long Island Sound getaway, but now you can add spacious comfort to the resume. Twenty two-bedroom villas, ranging in size from 1,100 to 1,300 square feet, have just made their debut. Each of the villas features a fully equipped kitchen with Viking appliances, two full baths, elevator access, gas fireplaces, flat panel LCD televisions, spacious balconies, and private beach access, ideally suited for families or two couples. To celebrate the new villas, Water’s Edge Resort & Spa is offering two deals. Snag a villa between now and May 19, 2013 for two nights and you’ll receive a third night free. In the next offer, guests who reserve a villa for a weeklong summer vacation by March 15, 2013 get 10% off the weekly rental price. 

 
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Stay at the Grafton Inn for $150 a Night in March

If you want to stay at a quintessential Vermont town, close to cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and downhill skiing, you might want to take advantage of the Grafton Inn’s latest deal. Pay just $150 for any room, any night at the inn, through the month of March. The price includes a full country breakfast and complimentary trail access to Grafton Ponds Outdoor Center. You must call the Grafton Inn to book this special: 800-843-1801. Online reservations will not apply. Never been to Grafton? Amble along Main Street past the Country Store, where I once spotted a sign posted outside asking if anyone’s seen a missing horse, and you swear you just stepped into a Currier and Ives painting. To the right is the red brick town hall, circa 1816, now home to the post office. Further up the road, past the white clapboard houses spewing smoke from their chimneys is the requisite white steeple. Across the street is the Old Tavern (now the Grafton Inn) , opened in 1801, and once the stagecoach stop on the ride from Boston to Montreal. Ulysses S. Grant spent a night here while campaigning for his presidency and Rudyard Kipling liked the locale so much he honeymooned at the hotel in 1892. For more information on Grafton, see the story I wrote for Preservation Magazine. 
 
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A Visit to Quebec City’s Ice Hotel

On my last day in Quebec, I took a tour of the only ice hotel in North America. Now in its 13th incarnation, the Hotel de Glace features 44 rooms and suites, a chapel that hosts around 20 weddings each winter, and a bar with incredible acoustics that was blasting a Led Zeppelin tune when I strolled in. It took more than 50 people some 4 to 6 weeks to build the structure, which opened on January 5 and will close on March 24th. Rooms are unheated. You warm up in an outdoor Jacuzzi and then go straight under the blankets for the night. I blew off that option, choosing instead to have a drink of vodka and cider served in an ice flute. Then I took a taxi back to the warm confines of my Hilton room. 
 
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Staying at Hotel La Ferme

Every day I receive press releases about the next glitzy resort opening, set to make its splashy debut in some corner of the globe. Many of these upscale properties charge in excess of $1,000 a night, your entrance fee to a world of exclusivity. Forget the local community. You’ll be hidden behind gates and fences, where maybe, if you’re lucky, your server that night comes from somewhere inside that country. Sustainability, the buzzword of the 90s and 00s, seems to have been replaced, as of late, by excessive opulence. Then I laid eyes on Hotel La Ferme in Quebec’s Charlevoix region and I can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that someone gets it. They have finally built a resort worthy of the new millennium. 
 
When Daniel Gauthier’s wooden barn, the largest structure in Canada, burned to the ground accidentally during a Quebec holiday in 2007, he began to reimagine the property he wanted to create in Baie-Saint-Paul. He ended up housing the 145 rooms and lofts in five separate pavilions reminiscent of farm buildings from yesteryear. The simple wooden exterior of the buildings hides a whimsical and contemporary European décor, where rolling barn doors might open to the bathroom or the family suite might come with comfortable bunk beds for each child. Yet, Gauthier’s next move is what won me over. He added 12 rooms, each with four beds, as his own version of a hostel. Gauthier knows that the nearby ski area, Le Massif, attracts a large crowd of young skiers. He wanted to offer them a great place to stay for only $49 per bed. 
 
There is no separation between Hotel La Ferme and the community. In fact, Gauthier made a mandate that food and craftsmanship should be produced within a 50-kilometer radius of Baie-Saint-Paul, if possible. So that salmon and emu meat was raised locally, the cheeses and bread a Charlevoix specialty, the red beer was brewed just down the road. The wooden trays and “do not disturb” signs in the rooms are manufactured by a group of local artisans who had the misfortune of not graduating high school. On Sundays, from mid-June to mid-October, the hotel invites 20 local farmers to showcase their fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and breads in a market just outside the lobby. 
 
Yes, there’s a spa with six treatment rooms, a room for yoga, a bar and lounge around a fireplace in the main building, and a café that makes arguably the best café au lait I’ve had this side of the Atlantic. But again, Gauthier, one of the founders of Cirque du Soleil, chose to be innovative. He has returned to his performing roots by offering a banquet space that can double as a theater, screening room, or dance hall. Since Hotel La Ferme’s opening last June, they have featured many Quebecois performers, including cabaret singers, theater troupes, and DJs. 
 
I love it when a local son or daughter becomes successful and gives back to the community. But in the case of Daniel Gauthier, he did so with class, style, and forward thinking. I’m hoping his ideas catch on with other hoteliers.