December 7, 2011
As many of our guests have happily discovered, we give books away. Most of the books in our guest rooms and throughout the house are hand picked from yard sales and the give and take centers. Some come from my own library as I make room for new favorites. Some come from our guests who either bring their own, or send them to us to be part of our large and diverse book sharing circle. But my favorite source just now is that I am buying (some times reading) and then putting in to the collection, books of authors who stay with us. Poets, historians, biographers, entomologists, philosophers, novelists, we are honored to host many fine writers here. You just never know what you will find on our book shelves, AND you can take books you like! Keep them moving around, keep reading! And thank you to our writing guests...
July 14, 2011
It was 21 years ago this week that Irving House started operations under the current ownership. Back then, we were establishing ourselves anew, leaving behind the good name of The Kirkland Inn, started on Kirkland Street in 1945, and beginning what felt like a new business.....
By AMAZING good fortune, this week, randomly on the street in West Newton, I met the manager of the Kirkland Inn, who also worked for Irving House for a while.
Now, after the years of hard work and all sorts of interesting challenges, I have time to look more into our history of hospitality. I hope to tap this long time manager for the stories and maybe post them here.
March 28, 2011
The house at 24 Irving Street, built as a two family wood framed structure, has been used for lodging since at least the 1940s. The woman who developed it into hotel use was a first generation immigrant from Bessarabia (now Moldova) arriving with her family when she was a young girl. Frances Shain graduated from Cambridge English High School but was not allowed to attend college. (Her elder sister had to choose between law school and marriage.) Nevertheless, she was an avid student of the sciences, attending night school classes in biology and nutrition. After she married Vangel Misho and they bought the seventeen room house at 67 Kirkland Street, her entrepreneurial spirit led her into lodging, and The Kirkland Inn was born.
By 1943, she had acquired the house at 24 Irving Street from her father. The property was already established a lodging house. Mrs. Misho at first contracted with Harvard University to use 24 Irving Street as a dormitory for Harvard freshmen. After two years she tired of their rowdy behavior, and agreed to take Radcliffe students instead. The women, according to her daughter Jeanne “were worse yet” and that arrangement ended after only one year.
The family home at 67 Kirkland Street, served as both an office and occasionally housed an overflow of hotel guests. Because of its close proximity to Harvard University, and because her husband Vangel was a graduate of the Harvard Business School, it often hosted academics of all kinds.
Jeanne recalled that, as a child, the moment she knew when guests from Irving House were coming to the family dinner at 67 Kirkland Street was when her father said:
‘Quiet now, everyone! I would like to introduce you to Professor so-and-so from somewhere-wonderful. He will stay to dinner with us and I am sure you will all be very pleasant to him.’
Frances Misho ran various promotions to market the inn. She paid cabdrivers one dollar for each guest they brought in. She ran contests with cash prizes. She printed small, pocket-sized brochures with a poem welcoming visitors to Cambridge, and a map to show travelers the way to their front door.
Frances Misho died in 1989. Her daughter Jeanne began the process of selling 24 Irving Street soon after. In the autumn of that year, a partnership of long time friends came together to buy the property, which by then had fallen into some disrepair.
When my partners and I visited, there was no name on the door, no street number, no light. All indications of its being a hotel were absent, including the name. The house was a tad spooky.
The evening after the sale closed, Jeanne and I sat down in the kitchen of 67 Kirkland Street to sort the details of the operations. We shared a bottle of wine. Jeanne gave me the box of keys, with cotton strings and cardboard tags. Some of the room numbers had rubbed off. Some had no tags at all. The guest registration cards were in order and provided the first records of occupancy for the new owners.
According to the terms of the sale, the name The Kirkland Inn was not to be used. This made sense, because the location of the hotel was on Irving Street. On the day of the sale the name we had tentatively chosen was Enoch Beane House, naming it after the grocer who had had it built as a rental property in 1893. This may have been historically accurate, but was not a great commercial choice. Within weeks, we had renamed it Irving House.
It was only after this decision was made, the name, Irving House Corporation filed, that we discovered some promotional materials using the name Irving House along side The Kirkland Inn.
Poem:
ROOMS! ROOMS!
‘Tis desperately hard in time of need
To find nice rooms here ‘bouts indeed!
Cease to frown and tarry no more
A welcoming smile attends this door
Home hospitality, a charming retreat
Wonderful rooms all modern and neat
Tile showers and baths shining and gay
A PERFECT END TO THE TRAVELER’S DAY!
History, museums, surround the lot
Washington, Longfellow, --aye names ne’er forgot
Abode in Cambridge, near this very dot!
Harvard, Radcliffe, M. I. T.
All within reach for ye
JUST PARK YOUR CAR—WITHOUT A FEE!
Fifteen minutes and twenty cents
Straighten out those Boston bends
No traffic snarls, no glaring cops
Not hours of looking for parking spots!
Serene and calm breath Boston charm
As the subway in CAMBRIDGE leaves you down town
Midst historical sites and famous stores’ brights
And OLDE NEW ENGLAND’S cooking delights!
An invitation dating from the 1950s goes on to say that The Kirkland offered “country charm midst city comfort and convenience” and instructs “inquire at office 67 Kirkland Street; enjoy our rooms at 24 Irving Street” Several of these were found behind baseboards and in dresser drawers in the basement as we moved through the renovation process. They indicate rates of $2-$4 per person, but another has crossed these out, replacing them with rates of $25-$40.
It was thrilling to find these lovely bits of memorabilia expressing the same style of hospitality, with the same amenities (modern and neat rooms, parking without a fee!) after we had already begun to promote the house along the same lines.
The first brochure I designed noted: “Now there is a place to stay in Cambridge, for you, and all your friends and relations.” The phrase ‘friends and relations” comes to me from A. A. Milne’s description of the broad community of Winnie the Pooh.
Perhaps Frances Misho knew this too when she wrote in her invitation: “It is our hope and our purpose to establish a period of acquaintanceship within which time you may be able to afford us the opportunity of meeting you, your friends and your relations.”
--Rachael Solem
