By Niki Price
Oregon Coast Today

Right: John Solie and his new painting for the Sylvia Beach Hotel. 

Imagine yourself a fiction writer, making the pitch in the editor’s office.

“Here’s the story: Two friends discover a rickety hotel by the ocean and see, in its grand old bones, a book lover’s hotel.  They borrow money to revive it and invite their friends to decorate the rooms in honor of famous authors: Colette, Edgar Allen Poe, Sigrid Undset.”

“Who?”

“Sigrid Undset. You know, the Norwegian novelist who won the Nobel Prize? Anyway, it’s a hotel for people who like to read and discuss things. Like Sigrid Undset and translating the stream of consciousness, or Middle Eastern politics or beach fossils. No swimming pool, no televisions, no telephones …”  You are cut off abruptly.

Did you say ‘No telephones?’”

At this point in the meeting, you are shown the door because the Sylvia Beach Hotel is a concept that is, in a word, implausible. Yet, fictional as it may sound, this Newport hotel is a very real destination with 20 rooms booked months in advance. On March 14, the principal characters gathered to celebrate 20 years of books, friends and conversation. Owners Sally Ford and Goody Cable invited all of the “roomers,” or those who decorated the Sylvia Beach Hotel’s rooms two decades ago, back for a bash.

Painter John Solie, one of their very first guests, came bearing a special gift: a group portrait of the 20 writers who are immortalized in the hotel’s rooms. 

Solie is a legendary portrait painter whose work has graced magazine covers, movie sets and museum walls across the country. In the new work, which now hangs in the lobby, the celebrities stand, sit and muse together, from Emily Dickinson and Tennessee Williams to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Alice Walker.

“I was absolutely awestruck when I saw it,” said Cable. “Speechless. I couldn’t believe how heartfelt it was. He captured the essence of the authors and the friendship that is the key to the whole hotel. It’s all based on friendship.” 

The perfect blend-ship. In fact, there wouldn’t be a Sylvia Beach Hotel without the relationship between Ford and Cable, which began when they were toddlers in Raleigh Hills, then a country suburb of Portland. They remained fast friends through high school, college, weddings and motherhood.

They were both home with three children apiece when Cable founded her first quirky venture, the Rimsky-Korsakoffee House in Portland. Named after the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the business still thrives as a haven for those who love casual concerts, conversation and luscious desserts. In 1986, she was ready to pursue another dream: a beachfront hotel for booklovers. Cable had the idea, and her best friend Ford had the financing (or at least, as Ford said, the earnest money and “the ability to borrow more.”)

Ford remembers the day when they first saw the 1910 Hotel Gilmore, a once-grand Nye Beach landmark that had fallen into disrepair. “I saw this old flophouse and I just fell in love with it,” said Ford.

They bought it, tore out three ratty roofs, took out all the windows and jacked it up to pour a foundation. Inside, they took the walls down to the studs, replaced the windows and installed 20 guest bathrooms, a kitchen and a laundry room.  They asked 20 friends to help them complete their theme, and they named the hotel after Sylvia Beach, the owner of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.

They convinced Ford’s brother, Ken Peyton, to help with the project. Peyton, who started at his family’s Crater Lake Lodge and holds degrees in hospitality and marketing, has been at the helm ever since.

“He’s truly the professional,” said Ford. “We have not regretted that decision for one instant.”

But while Ken is the only blood relative, the rest of the staff is like family — and have been around nearly as long. Cable gushes over assistant manager Charlotte Dinolt (“She came in shortly after we opened, and we basically couldn’t get along without her”) and head chef Cathy Lusk (“The cooking is just so fabulous, and always has been”). Without desk clerks like Babette Cabral, Judy Wright and Marcia Schwartz, and head housekeeper Jenny Robinson (an original staff member, too), she’d spend a lot more time worrying, Cable said.

“I think the hardest part for me is living 2 ½ hours away in Portland. But when you have a staff that you totally trust and feel they’re doing a fabulous job, that’s not even a problem.”

Truths, lies, no videotape

It can be difficult to launch a new hotel, especially one with such a particular atmosphere and few industry-standard amenities. But the Sylvia Beach has been a media darling from the start. Oregonian columnist and television personality Margie Boulé, a friend of Cable’s who decorated the hotel’s renowned Agatha Christie room, wrote the first of many articles.

“When we opened in 1987, we were already a nonsmoking building, which was unusual back then. So the Oregon Lung Association really liked us, and they wrote articles about us in various publications,” Ford said. “And we were just different. It was a unique idea.”

The hotel has remained smoke, pool, television and phone free, and maintains an upstairs library where spiced wine is served at 10 p.m. A breakfast buffet and family-style dinners are open to the public in the Tables of Content Restaurant, where the famous fibbing game, “Two Truths and a Lie,” takes place every night. Seated at round tables of eight, the diners each tell three stories and let the rest guess away.

The long conversations that ensue, Cable said, are exactly what she and her best friend had in mind when they stood on the corner of Third and Cliff streets more than 20 years ago.

“I think we live in a culture where people don’t talk to each other, and we have a lot of problems, as a society, because of it. We sit at home and watch TV, we eat on the run and we don’t know what our neighbors are thinking. The best way I can think of to change that is dialogue, people talking to each other.

“The dinner conversations are so much fun. Even the people who think they’re not going to enjoy it end up staying a real long time, and loving it,” Cable said.

Of course, it hasn’t been a perfect journey. Old pipes can be noisy. Health insurance plans can be hard to find. Guests can complain about the resident cats. Those who have attempted business ventures or renovations with their loved ones may be surprised that, after all these years, Ford and Cable are still best friends.

“That’s easy,” Ford said. “Before we started this, we sat down and said that no matter what, our friendship comes first. Goody and I have always said that we know everything about each other, and neither one of us is going to tell.”

The art-filled lobby and gift shop of the Sylvia Beach Hotel, 267 NW Cliff St., are open to the public. The Tables of Content Restaurant is also open to non-guests. For more information, call 541-265-5428.  

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