B&B = Balloons and Breakfast Today

Hardin Minor - Entertainer!

What great fun we had today at breakfast! Hardin Minor, our special guest and entertainer extraordinaire, on his way home to Charlotte from a performance in NYC, gave young Ella, an enchanted and special performance with his humor and balloon creations...from teddy bears to magic hats and swords!

What a great B&B morning!

I'm Dreaming of a White Halloween in Carlisle, PA

Who would believe snow for Halloween! Possibly 6 inches too. Had many Dickinson parents here for the Centennial Conference cross country meet. What a day to run!

We hear many trees and branches are down including this one 2 doors down the street.

Our back deck and patio looked more like January. Hope it is not precursor of things to come this winter!

Luigi's Ristorante - Carlisle PA - Special Seafood Night!!

Luigi's Ristorante
presents
Una Serata Nel Golfo Di Napoli
November 12 - 6:30pm

Luigis Ristorante, under the new ownership of Luigi and Anna Esposito, celebrated their Grand Opening today with the
Carlisle Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting.

One of their first big event evenings will feature a delicious dinner spotlighting seafood from the gulf of Naples. The menu sounds to die for so get your tickets now before they sell out. The price for a couple is only $50...that's a mere $25/person for 6 courses. BYOB!!

Better yet, stay at the Carlisle House and walk to Luigis!
Give us a call as we have several rooms still open!

Ribbon Cutting photo courtesy of Revelation Photography!

Fly American Airlines to the Carlisle House!

We really love American Airlines! With all the renovations we've been doing, our AAdvantage card has been really well used - to the extent that when we go to Little Rock in January for the International Professional Association of Innkeepers conference, we will be flying free with AA frequent flyer miles! So next time you use one of our gorgeously renovated bathrooms here at the Carlisle House, think American! Although I must tell you that our bathrooms are considerably bigger than theirs,

on the other hand ours don't fly at 36,000 feet! So next time you're flying into Little Rock, AR think to yourself "The Carlisle House Bathrooms have Grohe Aquatower showers with body sprays!" amd when you land, pull out your smartphone, go to TheCarlisleHouse.com and book your stay at ground level!

For us though, it's a big "Thank You" to

David Baldacci at the Carlisle House

Carlisle, although you may not know this, is the Center of the Universe! Sooner or later, people we admire from all walks of life find their way here, and to our great pleasure most often stay at the Carlisle House.

Tonight we feel particularly honored because one of our most favorite authors is staying with us. David Baldacci is here in town, and is the keynote speaker in tomorrow's "Celebrate the Book" Central Pennsylvania Book Festival.

David's books have been a great source of pleasure from his first, "Absolute Power", through the King and Maxwell series, and Alan's particular favorites, the Camel Club series, to his latest book "One Summer" - a very different sort of novel from the preceding ones.

A prodigious writer, David still finds time in his life to contribute to literacy efforts across the country. These include the Wish You Well Foundation founded by David and Michelle to support family literacy in the United States, the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, and the Virginia Literacy Foundation.

He is also involved in support for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and Cure Search, this last supporting lab research and state-of-the-art care of infants, children, teens, and young adults with cancer.

If, like me, you are curious about the genesis of a writer, then read "An Overnight Success" by David. You will enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed having him stay with us. For us, "The Whole Truth" is that David's writing is "Simple Genius", and "The Simple Truth" is that he is "The Winner", and David - we "Wish You Well"!

Special Guest with a Story to Tell

Severin Fayerman
Holocaust Survivor and Autobiographer

We were delighted to host a special guest last night. Severin Fayerman and his dear friend Toni. Severin was in the area to give one of his many inspirational presentations to young school students about his life in Poland and survival in the horrid and notorious prison camps of Nazi Germany, one of which was Auschwitz.

His book, A Survivors Story, details his life and the horrors experienced. Following the war and reunited with his family, young Severin's family came to the states, bought the small Baldwin Tool and Die Company in NJ and developed it into the prestigious Baldwin Brass Company!

History is personal and all around us

Those of you who have stayed in our Ewing Room or Rose Room, and certainly those of you who have the pleasure of being a Carlisle local, or Carlislian, will know that our B&B used to be the home of the Ewings, and that the twins, Seymour and Bill, grew up in our house.

We are reminded of this, and of them, often during the renovations and maintenance we are constantly performing, and yesterday as we were stripping old wallpaper we came across yet another Ewing Signature on the wall. Now, Seymour has been the most prolific writer, with comments on walls all over the property, but this one is by Bill, or William as he clearly liked to be called in his younger days. I said that Seymour did most of the writing but Bill made up for it with this one - it is almost 3 feet across!

For the first 5 years that we owned the Carlisle House, we often used to see Seymour and Bill drive into our parking lot and circle slowly around looking to see what changes we had made, and of course they were always available for open houses when Seymour would quietly sit in a chair in the Rose Room until he was noticed, then he'd say in a loud voice "It's alright! You can come in, I'm not stuffed!".

The next story about Bill and Seymour needs a little explanation. Our B&B was built in 1826 and has thick rock walls in the basement with enormous floor joists sitting on top of them, with the brick walls outside the joists, and on upward. Imagine, if you will, that between each joist is an open-fronted box with the rock as the bottom, two joists forming the walls, brick at the back, and the floor above is the top. Keep that in mind!

In the basement are the electrical breaker boxes, and we always keep a clear path between the basement steps and the electrical boxes so that we can reset breakers when needed. As we do a lot of maintenance, the path is used often and one day Mary went to the breaker box - maybe an hour or two after I had last been there - and in the middle of the path were scattered what looked at a quick glance like dollar bills. Mary picked them up, and noticed that on the back were typed Seymour and Bill's names. She called me and we stood there mystified as to where they could possibly have come from. As we looked around we shone a flashlight into the "box" described above, and saw an old leather wallet stuffed with play money!

The problem is that the opening of the wallet was facing into the box, toward the bricks. We still don't know how the money got out of the wallet and about 4 feet to the path to the breakers! Maybe it is the twins' way of saying "Don't forget us! We're still going to be here for as long as people remember us!".

We miss the twins, but are so glad to have known them. They truly were a part of Carlisle's history.