Okay, so I am a pushover for beautiful flowers

While attending the dedication of Nina's Garden this month, I couldn't help noticing these beautiful flowers on a tree. I asked Steve Hultgren, Nina's good friend and fellow gardener about them, and he told me that he had planted this (now a tree) as bare-root stock 15 years ago, in one of his first gardening adventures with Nina.

The roses are called "Paul's Himalayan Damask Musk Rose" and they are both fragrant and beautiful. I hope you have an opportunity to see them and experience the fragrance yourself. The tree is just across the street from the official little plot of land known as Nina's Garden.

Juli

Hawthorne Hotel's Flags of the Week ~~ June 30 through July 6, 2008

Monday , June 30 ~~ Montana and Samoa
Tuesday , July 1 ~~ Nebraska and San Marino
Wednesday , July 2 ~~ Nevada and Russian Federation (Russian Federation is flying by special request)
Thursday , July 3 ~~ New Hampshire and Sao Tome and Principe
Friday , July 4 ~~ New Jersey and Saudi Arabia
Saturday , July 5 ~~ New Mexico and Senegal
Sunday , July 6 ~~ New York and Serbia

Juli

The Petunias Have Arrived

. . . at the Hawthorne Hotel, and here are some snapshots of our maintenance crew installing them.

We hope you have an opportunity to come by and see them for yourself. They are quite beautiful this year.

Juli

We Value our Employees at the Hawthorne Hotel

Just recently, we recognized two more employees as our May Employees of the Month. This means a lot to us as the managers get to join in on the congratulations and guests in the hotel see the event and watch with pride as we say Thank You to our own.


Kristen Ternullo works part time for us in the Tavern. Here she is totally surprised!

Then we have Mary Szulc from the Kitchen as our full-time Employee of the Month. Chef Steve Nelson and Sous Chef Ken O'Keefe couldn't wait to present her with this award!

Congratulations!!!

Kristie Poehler

Director of Sales/Marketing

Visit from the Asher Family

This past weekend we had a wonderful visit from Elizabeth Montgomery's son Bill, and his family. Bill hadn't had the chance to see the statue of his mom off of Essex Street and was very interested in doing so. He spent the weekend at the hotel and had Sunday Brunch with us in Nathaniel's. His wife, Jessica and their two-year-old daughter Mikaela Elizabeth had a fun time in Salem, visiting the sites and spending time learning about Grandma Lizzy's experiences while filming Bewitched. The photo here shows them posing in front of our Bewitched photo wall in the hotel. If you want to learn more about the television series' filming from June 1970, visit us at the hotel! You may even be lucky enough to stay in the same room that Elizabeth Montgomery and her husband, Bill Asher, Sr. stayed in when they were here!

See you here!
Kristie Poehler
Director of Marketing

"Pinks" with Brick

Some more photos snapped with my handy iPhone, of my series "Flowers with Bricks", showcasing the old brick sidewalks and lovely flowers growing in the historic neighborhoods of Salem, Massachusetts.

Juli

Another Life Event at the Hawthorne Hotel

This month we had a very large Christening Party in our Grand Ballroom. They utilized some unique touches, so I snapped a couple of photos to share with you, dear blog reader. I hope you enjoy this view of another slice of life here at the Hawthorne Hotel.

Juli

Island Landscaping in Salem, Massachusetts

When most companies "adopt a traffic island" here in Salem, they simply pay money to the City, and the City arranges for the landscaping to happen. That's not the case with us. We simply took over the island across the street from the Hawthorne Hotel and started planting things there. This is a view of what we did this year.

I hope you enjoy keeping up with all that we do.

Juli

 
 
 

Flowers with Bricks

I seem to have found a 'series' of photos that I like to do, which I am calling "Flowers with Bricks". I like the contrast of beautiful flowers with the old bricks (mainly sidewalks) of Salem, so I will be trying to capture some more of these. I hope you enjoy them.

I took these with my trusty iPhone, on Essex Street.

Juli

Hawthorne Hotel's Flags of the Week ~~ June 23 through 29, 2008

We change the flags on the front of the Hawthorne Hotel every day, while Old Glory flies on the rooftop each and every day. Here is this week's lineup:

Monday , June 23 ~~ Maine and Republic of Moldova
Tuesday , June 24 ~~ Maryland and Romania
Wednesday , June 25 ~~ Massachusetts and Russian Federation
Thursday , June 26 ~~ Michigan and Rwanda
Friday , June 27 ~~ Minnesota and Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saturday , June 28 ~~ Mississippi and Saint Lucia
Sunday , June 29 ~~ Missouri and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

If you have a special request, please call Shannon Civitarese at 978-825-4323.

I hope to see you here.

Juli

A Nice E-Mail

We received this today, and thought you might like to see it too.

Juli

Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 6:59 AM
To: Karen Cotton
Subject: dinner june 20



Dear Karen,

I can’t begin to thank you enough for putting together such a wonderful event for my family. Everyone raved about the food, setting, and service. Both Lee at the bar and Corinne the manager were absolutely outstanding. (Almost makes me wish I weren’t out of kids for bar mitzvahs so we could do this again…almost.) Thank you and please pass along our appreciation to your exceptional staff.

Sincerely,

Karen Smith

The Garden Restaurant at PEM has new bamboo sculptures

This week I was visiting our Garden Restaurant at PEM for lunch, and immediately noticed there were a number of new, bamboo sculptures in the garden. I asked our waiter about them, and he said that they had actually been constructed during lunch a few weeks ago, and that the process was very interesting to watch.

I contacted the Public Relations department at PEM, and learned that the artist is Mr. Tetsunori Kawana, who is a well-known ikebana artist who travels the world doing installations like this one. (If you want to know more about Mr. Kawana, you can Google him.) He was here to meet with a visiting committee of PEM, and talked and demonstrated his work to them right there in the garden.

The first set of photos were taken by Gerald Marsella, and provided to us courtesy of PEM. The final four photos were the ones I snapped with my iPhone. I hope you enjoy them all.

They certainly enhance the outdoor dining experience of the Garden Restaurant at PEM.

Juli



 
 
 
 

A quick walk from the Hawthorne Hotel, a lovely garden

If you enjoy beautiful flowers and gardens like I do, you will be interested to see another garden just a 15 minute walk from the Hawthorne Hotel. The garden belongs to a long-time customer and friend of the Hawthorne, Delores Jordan. It is on the same block as Nina's Garden, mention in a post on the 17th of this month, and in fact, you will see it first. It is on the right-hand side of the street as you make the right-hand turn just one block after the House of the Seven Gables.

When Nina first started gardening on this street, she asked Delores who 'did' her garden for her. Delores replied that she did it herself! What a spectacular job she does, and she is not a youngster by any measure. She truly enjoys what she does, and it shows.

Here are some photos that I snapped of Delores' garden, right after the dedication of Nina's Garden. I hope you enjoy seeing them.

Another cross-over post from the Hawthorne Hotel

This past weekend we had a wonderful special occasion celebration here. I wrote and posted about it on our wedding blog, but readers of our general blog postings might certainly be interested as well. Just click on this link to go there:

http://www.weddingsatthehawthornehotel.blogspot.com/

I hope you enjoy this post.

Juli

First-run Movies, only one block from the Hawthorne Hotel

Not only is Cinema Salem located only one block from the Hawthorne Hotel, they show first-run movies, at the most reasonable prices around! AND they have REAL butter for their popcorn. It doesn't get too much better than this!

I hope to see you here, before or after a film at Cinema Salem.

Here is this week's newsletter:

Juli

Films will be arriving at CinemaSalem fast and furiously over the next ten days: GET SMART arrives this Friday, WALL-E arrives next Friday, and HANCOCK arrives July 2.

GET SMART was one of my favorite programs on TV as a kid, a witty send-up of spy shows featuring funny dialogue and great physical humor. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway star in this great new film which has been called "breezy summer fun" by ReelzChannel.com and "one of the better TV adaptations to come along in recent years" by Cinematical.

Of course, now that school is finally (almost) out, we'll be running a seven-day a week schedule of great movies all day long. GET SMART (PG-13) will play Friday through Sunday at (11:00 AM), (1:45), (4:15), 7:15 and 9:50; Monday at (1:45), (4:15), 7:15 and 9:50; and Tuesday through Thursday at (11:00 AM), (1:45), (4:15), 7:15 and 9:50.

The most perceptive of you has figured out that the Mom and Baby Show feature this coming Monday will be GET SMART, and it will play at 11 am!

The lovable KUNG FU PANDA (PG) will screen Friday- Thursday at (11:30 AM), (2:15), (4:45), 7:00 and 9:15.

The quintessential chick-flick that shattered box office records, SEX AND THE CITY (R - 138 minutes) plays Friday through Thursday at (12:00), (3:00), 6:45 and 9:45.

Don't forget that admission to every show that starts before 6 pm costs only $6 throughout the summer of 2008, as part of CinemaSalem's Economic Recovery Special. This extraordinary rate applies to children, adults, seniors, and Martians!

We'll have interesting updates on the Café, the bumperstickers, the cupholders, and more exciting topics in the weeks to come. So stay tuned!

Thanks again for supporting CinemaSalem!

Paul Van Ness

Another Lovely Dish at the Garden Restaurant

At the PEM (Peabody Essex Museum). As you may already know, the Hawthorne's Offsite Catering Division runs the two restaurants at the PEM. If you ever get a chance to have lunch here, you will thrilled with the extraordinarily high quality of the food and service.

This dish was a special grilled shrimp appetizer with a sauce that incorporated orange, chestnuts and basil. It was served with a steamed purple potato -- a fantastic dish that was not only tasty and visually appealing, but also very, very healthy.

I hope to see you there.

Juli

Nina's Garden was dedicated this week

On Saturday June 14, Nina's Garden was dedicated to her memory with a huge celebration. Here are some photos I took with my iPhone.

The first two are of the monument with a bronze plate bearing an inscription including Nina's photo, and her husband, Russ Vickers. The balance of the photos are of the lovely gardens.

I hope you enjoy seeing them. If you want to see this charming garden yourself, simply walk one block down Derby Street past the House of the Seven Gables, and turn right down toward the Hawthorne Cove Marina. You can't miss the gardens on your left.

So why is this garden and Nina included in the Hawthorne Hotel blog, you might ask? Nina was 'one of us' here at the Hawthorne Hotel. She played her harp at the Hotel on more occasions than we can count, and for each and every one of them she wore a different dress and outfit, befitting the occasion at hand, and made by Nina herself.

Nina lost a decades-long battle with cancer earlier this year, but it never got her down, because Nina absolutely would never let anything get her down.

We miss you, Nina.

Juli

Wedding Rehearsal on the Common

As I was walking home on Friday evening I noticed this wedding rehearsal taking place on the Common, so I snapped this photos with my trusty iPhone.

I thought you might enjoy seeing them, as well as seeing the photos I took the next day of the wedding and the bride and groom, all out on the Common. I even took some video, so there is a lot to see on our wedding blog. If you want to take a look, go to: http://www.weddingsatthehawthornehotel.blogspot.com/.

Please enjoy this other slice of life, here at the Hawthorne Hotel and the Common, in Salem, Massachusetts.

Juli