Author(s): Hilary Heminway; Alexander Heminway; Audrey Hall (Photographer)

Travel Writing

A good host knows that every guest is an honored guest, whether hard-pressed and lost or upbeat and well. But how to be a good host--or for that matter, a good guest--can be a perplexing and often stressful question. Guest Rooms, by Hilary and Alexander Heminway, offers tips, suggestions, and sound advice for creating guest sanctuaries, while helping hosts to maintain their sanity. It includes decorating ideas, and sidebars on linens, amenities, meals, tips on being a good guest, instructions for preparing a guest bath, and more.
Guest Rooms includes ideas like
Every host should expect the unexpected, but guests shouldn't expect if unexpected.
Simple means will suffice--towel, tent, coffee from a can. One needn't deliver South Beach to the guest who calls from the corner.
Put your guests at ease with a glass and a plate.
Extra hangers in the guest closet may seem a trifle, but they encourage your guest to unpack, and add the promise: we have a place for you.
Little treasures are a gift: a glass of wine, flowers by the bed, time, and conversation. Leave hard questions and demands for later.
Guest Rooms is the perfect guide to creating comfortable, welcoming spaces. With simple and easy-to-use information, Guest Rooms helps harried hosts find time to enjoy visitors while they stay, rather than scramble and stress in an effort to make a room or a visit "perfect."
Hilary Heminway began her design career by decorating cast-off shoeboxes when she was a schoolgirl in New York City. Her rearrangement of nativity scenes and barnyard panoramas marked the beginning of an abiding interest in purposeful design and thoughtful management of space. Today in boots, tomorrow in heels, Hilary divides her time between Montana, Connecticut, and wherever else the wind takes her. She is the proud mother of two children.
Alexander Heminway earned an M.F.A. in poetry from Columbia University. He lives in Los Angeles.