Ecce, which is perched on a wooded bluff some three hundred feet above the Delaware River, is both beautiful and comfortable beyond belief. This is what I wrote about it after my first visit fourteen years ago:
Ecce is not your usual bed-and-breakfast. It was started a year ago by a couple of Wall Street businessmen who heard the chimes at midnight and decided to change their lives before it was too late. Perhaps not surprisingly, the tone and décor of their five-room inn are considerably more urbane than those of the comfy, chintzy country retreats where I typically spend my nights on the road. (I certainly can’t think of another B-&-B that has pencil-signed Hirschfeld lithographs of Carol Channing and Lucille Ball hanging proudly in the upstairs hall!) At the same time, Ecce lacks nothing in the way of country comforts—there’s even a hammock—and my baked spinach omelet, served on a deck overlooking the river, was wonderfully tasty. As I reluctantly pulled out of the parking lot after breakfast, I resolved to come back again as soon as possible.
Reader, I kept that resolution.
I went to a great deal of trouble to make this visit restful. I have no shows to see and no deadlines to hit. Instead, I packed an eclectic assortment of books and DVDs, though I expect I’ll spend most of my time on the patio, looking at nothing in particular. The fact is that I’m here to do as much nothing as possible: I don’t intend to tweet or check my e-mail any more than is strictly necessary. Outside of keeping in close touch with Mrs. T, who is being looked after in Connecticut by her father and nephew, I’m going to try to maintain passably strict radio silence between now and my return to New York on Friday.
See you then—but not, I hope, before.
