White Mountains Arts Festival

This August visit Jackson, New Hampshire for the annual White Mountain Arts Festival. This two day long festival is sponsored by the Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce and is held in the Jackson Village Park on the 18th and 19th.

Artists both selling their work, as well as those there to be judged on their work, will be showing off their pieces to the public during the weekend. There will be musicians and an abundance of food vendors to attract visitors to the area as well. Jackson grew its popularity from artists traveling far and wide to paint there due to its outstanding view of the White Mountains.

If you want to spend a romantic weekend with your special someone at the Art Festival, be sure to visit the Inn at Thorn Hill. This full service inn has 25 rooms, a fine dining room as well as more casual lounge offerings. The Inn at Thorn Hill also offers a spa facility. This adult sanctuary was voted one of the ten most romantic inns in North America.

Innkeeping comes with surprises

As soon as Jim and Ibby Cooper crossed the covered bridge to Jackson, New Hampshire, and saw the Inn at Thorn Hill, they knew they wanted to buy it. Hospitality is in Jim’s blood, being from a family in the business and working for 20 years for various hotels. Ibby was a teacher whose skills would be applied to training staff and developing programs.

Yet there were surprises to come. the Coopers had three children in college and one in seventh grade when they bought the inn, and shortly after, Ibby became pregnant with their fifth. Their new son was popular with their guests, as Ibby waited tables with him on her back.

“I thought I could do this for five years,” Ibby says, “but it’s now been 16 years. New England was an adjustment, as we’d lived before where it was warmer. But we’ve learned to enjoy the four seasons.”

An even bigger surprise occurred on October 13, 2002, when a fire destroyed the inn. All guests and staff were safe and sound, but the Coopers faced a decision, whether to walk away or rebuild. They chose to build a new inn like the original but with a long-range vision for growth.

Now the main building at the Inn at Thorn Hill and Spa has 16 guests rooms (up from 12), an award-winning restaurant, a wine cellar, a cooperage, and a spa with exercise room and dry sauna. After more than a year, the inn reopened on December 22, 2003 to welcome new and previous guests.

Jim and Ibby see their warm and attentive hospitality, which they instill in their staff, as key to the fact that 35 percent of their guests have been there before. “They come back to try different rooms, new menu items, and the various seasons here,” Jim explains.

The Coopers were among the three inns in northern New England that founded DINE. The group encouraged Europeans with their long vacations to come to the U.S. and stay at all three inns. The DINE idea grew, and now guests (like you) from anywhere in the world can plan a vacation with stays at Distinctive Inns throughout New England.