The Hotel Nantucket (130)

I want to say a few parting words about the island. I came to Nantucket in 1993 intending to stay just for the summer and “write my book.” (This was a novel called Girl Stuff, which never saw the light of day.) I was living in New York City at the time, and when I returned to my apartment in Manhattan, I burst into tears. My roommate looked at me and said, “I take it you had a good summer?” I knew then that my future would be in Nantucket; I moved there the following June. I had fallen in love with the island—the dunes and the eelgrass and the sandy roads that cut through the moors; the houses with names and boot scrapers on the front steps and lavish flower boxes; the simple aesthetic of gray shingles with white trim; the days of fog and the days of bright sunshine; the singular pleasure of driving a Jeep onto the beach and watching the sun set over the water at Fortieth Pole; the smell of butter and garlic as I walked into 21 Federal; the taste of corn picked from the fields of Bartlett’s Farm only an hour before; the sensation every night of going to bed with sand in the sheets. But more than all of that, I fell in love with the people. It’s the people of Nantucket who have made the island my home and who have made raising three children here such a wonderful experience. The year-round community is diverse and vibrant. We are hardy folks, patient and tolerant, and there is no community that comes together to help one another like we do.

I owe Nantucket Island everything I have and everything I am. What a muse she has been!

XO, Elin





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Acknowledgments




I had a lot of help in creating the Hotel Nantucket. My inspiration was the Nantucket Hotel and Resort, owned by Mark and Gwenn Snider. Mark and Gwenn lead by excellent example, and they have assembled an incredible team, many of whom have worked at the hotel since it opened in June of 2012. I would like to thank general manager Jamie Holmes for sitting down and talking with me. I also had an extremely informative conversation with LeighAnne McDonald of the hotel’s front desk. In no particular order, thank you to Nicole Miller, Tim Benoit, Deb Ducas, Johnathan Rodriguez, Carlos and Fulya Castrello, John Vecchio, Sharon Quigley, Kate O’Connor, Matthew Miller and Rick James, Danilo Kozic, Patricia Dolloff, Frederick Clarke, Wayne Brown, and Amy Vanderwolk. As Shelly Carpenter says, “Hotels aren’t about rooms. They aren’t about amenities. They’re about people.” The people who work at the Nantucket Hotel and Resort are some of the very finest in the hospitality industry.

For design inspiration, I want to thank Elizabeth Georgantas, Erin Gates, and my brilliant sister-in-law Lisa Hilderbrand. I must give credit to Elizabeth Conlon for the penny-sheathed wall.

The books I found helpful were Jacob Tomsky’s Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles and So-Called Hospitality and Micah Solomon’s The Heart of Hospitality: Great Hotel and Restaurant Leaders Share Their Secrets. I stalked the websites of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration and the Statler Hotel, but the versions of the hotel school I present in this novel are fictional.

For all things Minnesota/Minnetonka-related, thank you to friends of (gulp) thirty-seven years, Fletcher and Carolyn Chambers.

Thank you to Amy Finsilver and Pamela Blessing of XV Beacon in Boston for being the ultimate lifesavers.

Thanks to Ashley Lasota for the term deep August. I love it.

Thank you to the Instagram account @Chadtucket. (You know why!)

As many of you know, I do not have an assistant, but I do have a “work husband.” His name is Tim Ehrenberg, and he’s the marketing director for Nantucket Book Partners and the creator of the Bookstagram account @timtalksbooks. He is also the secret to my success. Tim and I work tirelessly in the scary basement of Mitchell’s Book Corner, where I sign thousands of preorders that Tim then lovingly packages and ships out. He is the best companion, the strictest taskmaster, the savviest interviewer, the most generous reader, and one of my closest friends. I love you, Tim Ehrenberg! Never leave me!

Huge thank you to my editor, Judy Clain, who once again blessed my work with her intellect, her sharp sensibility, her humor, and something elusive that feels like magic.

Thank you to my agents, Michael Carlisle and David Forrer, for making every dream I had as a writer come true.

Thank you to the great Michael Pietsch, Terry Adams, Craig Young, Ashley Marudas, Lauren Hesse, my publicist Katharine Myers, Brandon Kelly, Bruce Nichols, Jayne Yaffe Kemp, Tracy Roe, Anna de la Rosa, Mariah Dwyer, Karen Torres, and Sabrina Callahan. I appreciate every single brilliant thing you do on my behalf, which is a lot of things!

To my home team: Rebecca Bartlett, Debbie Briggs, Wendy Hudson, Wendy Rouillard, Liz and Beau Almodobar, Margie and Chuck Marino, Katie and Jim Norton, Sue and Frank Decoste, Linda Holliday, Melissa Long, Jeannie Esti, the fabulous Jane Deery, Julie Lancia, Deb Ramsdell, Deb Gfeller, Anne and Whitney Gifford, David Rattner and Andrew Law, Manda Riggs, Helaina Jones, Heidi Holdgate, Matthew and Evelyn MacEachern, Holly and Marty McGowan (Marty made the book!), Richard Congdon, Angela and Seth Raynor, Rocky Fox, Julie and Matt Lasota, and the talented Jessica Hicks. What would I do without you?

Thank you, Timothy Field, my sweetest friend, for loving me through the crazy.

Thank you to my family: my mother, Sally Hilderbrand, as well as Eric and Lisa, Rand and Steph, Todd, and Doug and Jen. The biggest hug of all goes to my sister, Heather Thorpe, for being my fiercest champion, my best friend, and the “woman who walks me home.”