Friday afternoon I drove up to Salem to see two of my friends get married at the Hawthorne Hotel. I'd actually been to the Hawthorne twice before, once at this exact same time of year and I remembered how beautifully they decorate for the holidays.
The Hawthorne is directly off of the Salem Common, a lush public green. The hotel sports green awnings to match.
Inside the lobby was decked out in red and green for Christmas.
On the second floor there was a sitting area I dubbed "the Christmas corner." I love how warm and cozy it feels.
I arrived with a friend and we planned to share a room. When we approached the check in desk the greeter gave us our keys and asked us to read the hotel's policies and sign them. This is not something I am used to doing, so I read it word for word.
As it turns out, the Hawthorne Hotel has a curfew. All guests must be silent as of 12:15am. In fact, the document states there is a "zero tolerance policy" for noise after curfew. Uh oh. The document also states that no outside alcohol is permitted in the rooms. I was pretty sure we'd be spending the night on the streets of Salem.
Hoping for the best, we headed in the elevator and up to the 5th floor. When the elevator doors opened we walked into this reading nook.
In the hallway each room's door is accented with a fountain shaped decoration.
At the time we arrived, our room was bathing in sunlight. We had two queen size beds, a sitting area, a desk and a walk in closet. Please also notice the two gold chandeliers.
The bedding was simple with crisp white sheets.
We had a nice annex with a table, chairs and an almost full length mirror.
Our bathroom was small, but did get great sunlight. Unfortunately it did take the shower a good 10 minutes to get hot and that hot water only lasted about five minutes. Not ideal.
My favorite part of the whole room was that the toiler paper was a fixed to the bathroom door. Why have I never thought of this? What an excellent space saving solution. Also, for all my friends who have cats (you know who you are) they would love this!
Our room was an excellent place to get ready for the wedding and an even better place to crash into bed after hours of dancing. Don't you worry, we obeyed the silence rule and managed not to get kicked out. In fact, when we stepped off the elevator on our way back to our room we were greeted by a giant poster on an easel that read, "Shhhhh! Quiet hours are in effect."
Though we followed the rules, the Hawthorne did not. At 6:00am the clock radio in our room came blaring to life, blasting AM talk radio. About an hour later, at 7:00am, housekeeping began loudly banging on doors up and down our floor. Geesh!
On the plus side, the Hawthorne is very centrally located for exploring Salem. You can walk all over town from there. Even though they are positioned in the center of town, they still have an enormous parking lot just for their guests. As I said, they also do a wonderful job decorating for the holidays which makes your time there happier and cozier.
Have you ever spent the night in Salem? Is there another hotel you'd recommend?
