"Dreaming in the tea pot"

"Les Reveries dans la Theiere"

It's a 400 year old stucco row house on a quiet village street ...we have the whole place to ourselves. Don, a handsome 50's something french man opens the home for us and gratefully speaks English...  He's right out of GQ magazine. Tall, slender, salt and pepper hair with the coolest eye wear ever... I need a pair.

Ron and his wife Ann own the house.   They bought it 5 years ago and turned this 3 bedroom into a 5 bedroom guest house.  They live above their tea shop across the street.  

Don says they moved permanently here from Paris center 5 years ago when their children started to show preteen signs of difficult times ahead.  

The attraction to this village was simple: Smaller schools, less of a hoodlum element and a quieter existence made this a good move.

Their tea shop is like no other.  Over 450 tea blends.  Every Tea accessory ever manufactured and then upstairs on the roof level is a secret garden.  

The garden is lush and beautiful.   Probably 30 tables with colorfully pillowed chairs sit among the honeysuckle and climbing hydrangeas...every table placed in a spot where Alice in Wonderland may take tea.  

They serve a wide variety of pie (quiche), wines, tea and even some French microbrews.

There are white Christmas lights and little fairy ornaments hanging from the trees.   This must be cool at night.   Don said he had a full house at lunch.  People come from all over to try his pie and enjoy their garden. 

If we spoke french we probably could have read the sign inviting us to this magical place but alas. We were happily surprised and captivated.

Don is an executive turned innkeeper.  He said he used to travel to Boston frequently in his other life.   Says he was usually there in the snowy months and has no desire to go back.  

I want to ask what his other life was?  Fashion model, perhaps?  Swoon.

Our guest room is pink, lacy and done in miniatures.

Marks 6 foot self dangles off the 5 foot pink bed.  

It's cute. A little like living in a comic strip.

 Complete with shuttered windows that open into the room and look out onto a courtyard of common living space for the 5 guest rooms.  The courtyard is decorated in varieties of old watering cans and gardening tools with cast iron patio furniture and cushions of yellow. Orange and green.

Simply gorgeous.

#donteverneedtoleave