Checking out pleasures of hotel lobby reading nooks
Ihave a thing for old hotels, good books and quality coffee. Those three things came together when I found myself with a friend at The Sagamore Resort in Lake George a few weeks ago for our shared birthday. We booked a suite so we could have separate rooms and maintain our social distance. She’s my tennis and birthday buddy and the hotel stay was a whim – both of us needed a break.
Since my early sleepover days, I’ve always woken up before anyone else. If the household had books, I was fine and I’d wait for the other girls to wake up. As an adult, I need caffeine. On a mid-september morning, our little balcony was too cold for sitting and reading, and the coffee pods just weren’t cutting it.
I remembered that they served coffee at the Sagamore bar, so I went in search, armed with my book. I peeked into the bar and they weren’t quite ready, so I found a comfy armchair and curled up with my book, Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things.”
I read as light filled the yellow Sagamore lobby and other early risers came looking for coffee, peering up from my book on occasion. During my previous stay, I sat by the lobby’s fireplace and read before the sun came up. There are groupings of sofas and chairs that make the lobby more intimate, but far enough apart for privacy and, these days, safety. A grand piano sits in the middle. Beyond the glass doors is Lake George. Reading in a lobby is half reading and half people watching: the bustling of the staff, the fellow early risers, those checking out early.
There weren’t many others, but I overheard a golfer asking what time the coffee would be available, which gave me the information I needed. Ten minutes. I could wait. I went back to my book, feeling happier than I had in a while and then got my fix of good coffee.
As I make my way back into the nervous world, having a book in my bag grounds me and makes me less anxious. I’ve now read on park benches, sitting up against a tree while taking a hiking break and in my car while I wait in line at the bank window.
But reading in a hotel lobby, especially in a grand dame such as the Sagamore, was the
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