The School Room is a recreation of an old Vermont schoolhouse, with a slate blackboard and chalk, a period school desk and globe, and other schoolhouse antiques. Falling asleep in this classroom is encouraged, and made even easier by a king-size bed. A mural on the wall depicts Vermont in winter and summer as well as a library coming alive with literary figures. In the bathroom there's a Jacuzzi tub, black marble counter, and separate shower. A private porch with twin rocking chairs allows for even more daydreaming.

Rate: $425.00 • Click here to see a room comparison chart

At long last, you can go to sleep in class without guilt. In fact, our school room is designed in order to encourage just that by recharging your memory to those times when you were probably doing all you could to stay awake during class. Utterly impossible not to doze, sitting in those hard chairs while the sun was shining outside and the fishing poles calling for help.

This room celebrates the one-room schoolhouse, the foundation of Vermont's education for 200+ years. Warren had six of them, three of which are still standing on their original locations. The simple designs with high ceilings, walls of windows and the big bell on top have become signatures for Vermont. Vermont has one single-room schoolhouse (kindergarten through eighth grade) left in full operation, which is located 20 minutes south of Warren in Granville. In addition, the Shelburne Museum has one that has been fully restored and equipped on exhibit.

Here we have created an illusion of time and space in the design of the room by curving the interior wall, continuing the windows across it, and leaving a space between the interior wall and the new curved one. This simple move created space for an exhibit case, George Washington's portrait and two diorama paintings. Sonja Gropman, an artist living in New York and Warren, executed both of these. She selected a style of primitive painting from records of 18th and 19th century children's art. The winter and summer scenes are not unlike that seen out the window of the "Plunkton School" in 1850. By the way, the old Plunkton School is still standing at the four corners of the Plunkton and Fuller Hill Roads in East Warren, three minutes up the road from the Inn.

Behind the copy of Gilbert Stuart's George Washington (each schoolroom had one and the original can be viewed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) you will find the TV. Opposite the wall of windows is the wall of blackboards, complete with the treble, bass clef, and lines so you can write your own music. (We haven't been able to find the multi-chalk holder that teachers would use to set the lines for music scores, if you find one let us know.) These 3/8th inch thick slate blackboards came from salvaged Vermont schoolrooms. On the desk are several small individual slate boards that were used before paper was cheap.

The trim around the room has been copied from an authentic storage closet we located in Burlington, VT and installed at the edge of the blackboards. Above the trim is the alphabet and numbers copied from the "Palmer Method of Hand Writing". An original copy is in the display window. Take it out and try your hand on the blackboard. Above the old school master's desk with the glass globe and book from the Replogle Company in Evanston, Illinois are the pull-down study maps we all learned to love - look closely at Cuba.

Opposite the map is a mural in perspective, which extends the room into a fantasy library. The oak side pillars came from the private library of a torn down mansion near Charlotte, VT. Sarah-Lee Woodard and Edgar Stewart have created a caricature of Raphael's most famous painting of the 1600's: "School of Athens" making it into the school library - look in the middle shelf for an art book that has a copy of Raphael's original with Plato and Aristotle in the middle. Can you find Pinnochio, Geppetto, Tinkerbell, Mother Goose, Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, Ratty and Mole, the Cheshire Cat and Alice? You will find them among steam trains or in King Arthur's castle that looms in the distance. You will discover next to the mural, on the book shelf, that there is a copy of Edgar Stewart's illustrated children's book, and you have no doubt seen some of Sarah-Lee's work when she led much of Ben & Jerry's graphics into production.

The bedside tables are real Vermont school desks and the Abe Lincoln in the bathroom is the same vintage one might have found in the hallways of the old schools. The bathroom counter used to be a laboratory top in the old science lab at Norwich University. We are still looking for more old posters for our bulletin board, a flag stand (we have a 48 star flag) and lots of old school books. We found an early school clock and the same simple ceiling lights they still use in many schools. Note that the ceiling has intentional cracks and areas of repainting to simulate the old ceiling one would stare at during study time. There was magic in those old rooms as there must have been magic coming from the school teacher who held order in a room with kids of all ages, while trying to inspire and feed the necessary learning to the leaders of the future.

The one-room schools wouldn't work without skilled, fearless and charismatic teachers who could command attention and deliver the three "R's" and more. They were more often than not career teachers holding down the fort for 20-40 years. They became an institution in local life. Our list of Warren one-room teachers is becoming complete and will be memorialized by a plaque in the hall.

This room was a joy to design and see built. All the artists, craftsmen and mechanics contributed ideas and energy. Steve James, one of Hoover's crew, masterminded installation of the casework. Rice Lumber milled out the ridiculous paneling shapes, Parky Halsey built the cabinets, Master's Electric figured out how to wire-up the place and Duncan Syme laid out the bathroom tiles for Keith to work them in.
- Dave Sellers