An Arts and Crafts Inn in Western New York

By Ilona Biro

EAST AURORA, New York--Blessed with fresh air and peaceful surroundings, country inns are the perfect antidote to hectic city life. So as I sped along the I-90 south of Niagara Falls, I was looking forward to a much-needed tonic. But staying at The Roycroft Inn goes beyond the usual inn experience. It opens the door to a fascinating chapter in American history, when the Inn was at the heart of one of the most successful Arts and Crafts communities that ever existed.

From its modest beginnings as a publisher of hand-bound books and magazines in 1895, Roycroft, as the community was called, evolved into a leading manufacturer of hand-crafted products. Today, 14 buildings on the Roycroft campus are open to the public and are National Historic Landmarks, including the centerpiece Inn - faithfully restored and brimming with original and reproduction Roycroft furniture. As soon as I arrived I delved into the remarkable history of the place and of the Arts and Crafts philosophy that had guided Roycroft’s founder.\

The Arts and Crafts movement was developed by William Morris in England, as a philosophical and aesthetic reaction to the Industrial Revolution. It emphasized hand-crafted work, a strong community spirit and a commitment to a simple and self-reliant way-of-life. By the end of the 19th century, Morris had followers all over the world.

One of his most ambitious disciples was an American businessman named Elbert Hubbard. After giving up a lucrative position as an executive with The Larkin Soap Company, Hubbard visited Morris’ Kelmscott Press and crafts complex in England, and returned stateside with a mission: to build a community where craftspeople could create beautiful hand-printed books. In one of his earliest publications, Hubbard outlined his key theme: “Men are homesick amid this mad rush for wealth and place and power. The calm of the country invites, and we would fain do with less things and go back to simplicity.”

From a single printing press purchased in 1895, Elbert Hubbard’s Roycroft community grew into a network of workshops where hand-bound and hand-illustrated books, copperware, Mission-style furniture, stained glass lamps and leather goods were produced. At its peak, 500 craftspeople worked here and Roycroft had its own fire department, bank, baseball team and orchestra.

Hubbard’s skills as a marketer and ad-man ensured that Roycroft’s fame spread far and wide, until its products were being sold all over the United States and Canada. At the same time, Hubbard had become a best-selling author and one of the highest-paid public speakers in America, filling Carnegie Hall at a dollar a head and delivering up to 200 lectures in a single year.

People started arriving in East Aurora in droves, curious to see the Roycroft way-of-life. For a time Hubbard and his wife Alice put visitors up in their own home, but in 1904, plans were drawn up for an inn.

After discussions with Frank Lloyd Wright, who visited Roycroft while working on his own buildings in Buffalo, Alice Hubbard got to work with Roycroft artist Gabriel Fournier and architect James Cadzow. In stark contrast to the gothic style of the rest of the buildings, she designed the Inn around a cloistered inner garden, with grand common rooms and suites decorated with Roycroft furnishings, stained glass windows and elegant William Morris wallpapers. Its recent 8-million dollar renovation has carefully recreated her vision: everything from the fine furniture to the cotton linens reflects the Roycroft emphasis on craftsmanship, design and artistry, what Hubbard called the “head, heart and hand” approach to work.

In Hubbard’s time, the Inn was the intellectual center of Roycroft, where he and Alice entertained the likes of Henry Ford, Carl Sandburg and Thomas Edison. After dinner on Sundays, the Roycroft Orchestra would perform in the Music Room or Hubbard would lead discussions of contemporary issues. But like Hubbard himself, the Inn was an unpretentious place that owed its charm more to the interesting guests that showed up on its doorstep than from anything else. In promotional material for the Inn Hubbard wrote: “The Inn is a place where you ‘forget it’ and act natural. No extra charge for communing with famous guests and filching their autographs and their ideas.”

An ad-man through and through, it seems Hubbard could not resist flogging his ideas - albeit in a subtle and decorative way. At Sunday brunch in the Inn’s dining room, for instance, I noticed that carved into the wooden beams above me were the mottoes, “self-reliance”, “reciprocity” and “moderation.” And more obviously, there are numerous doors and window frames around the campus inscribed with aphorisms like “Raise the stone and thou shalt find me, cleave the wood and there I am.”

Across the street from the Inn, new shops and studios are breathing life back into the old workshops. I poked around in Kitty Turgeon’s shop for hours, where Roycroft reproduction lamps and furniture, Arts and Crafts decorating items and first edition books look right at home in the former Roycroft copper shop. Turgeon is a founding member of RALA - Roycrofters At Large Association - the group that’s been behind the current resurgence of interest in the community. As I admired work by local artists who are working in the Arts and Crafts style, Turgeon commented, “Hubbard would be thrilled to know there are artists working at Roycroft again. He wouldn’t have wanted it to become a static place.”

Around the corner from the Inn and campus is the Elbert Hubbard-Roycroft Museum. Housed in an Arts and Crafts bungalow built in 1910, the museum is filled with furniture, leatherwork and artwork all made by Roycrofters. “Part of Hubbard’s philosophy was to take common materials, like oak or copper, and give them the same attention you’d give diamonds, mahogany or gold,” Turgeon had explained earlier. The quality and simple luxury of the items spoke for themselves. The masterpiece is a stunning built-in chestnut sideboard in the dining room, fitted with hand-hammered copper fixtures - a one-of-a-kind piece. Oak and chestnut floors covered in Navajo rugs and burnished copper lamps with stained glass shades lend a warmth and richness to the interior that continues to win people over to the unfussy Arts and Crafts style.

But the greatest discovery of my trip to East Aurora was Hubbard himself. After 20 years as a successful marketing executive, the business world still left him cold. He “retired” at age 36, attended Harvard for a term, tried his hand at writing a novel, and finally found his niche when he discovered Arts and Crafts. \
When he returned to East Aurora, Hubbard was a changed man. Sporting flannel shirts and corduroy pants, his unfashionably long hair tucked under a big black Stetson hat, he knew his unconventional dress and philosophical bent might ruffle the feathers of his neighbours. But Hubbard was not one to explain himself. He went about building Roycroft while publishing magazines littered with his characteristically irreverent epigrams. One of them sums up his attitude perfectly: “Never explain; your friends don’t need it and your enemies will never believe you anyway.”

His first publication was a magazine called The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, which included his folksy prescriptions for the good life. In the August 1908 issue of another of his magazines, The Fra, he outlined his ideal political platform. In it he advocated kindergarten, equal suffrage, tree-planting, forest-preservation, disarmament, universal peace, no wars of aggression, and manual training in public schools.

But while his magazines had circulations of 100,000 within a few years, it was with the publication of his essay “A Message to Garcia,” in 1899, that he became one of the most influential voices of his time. The essay, which preached accepting responsibility and “getting the job done”, went on to sell 80 million copies, and remains in print to this day.\

Things at Roycroft carried on splendidly until May 17, 1915, when a German submarine sank the SS Lusitania, with Elbert and Alice Hubbard on board. While Roycroft continued with Hubbard’s eldest son Bert at the helm, eventually it declared bankruptcy in 1938.

Today, a hundred years after Roycroft’s founding, the Arts and Crafts style and philosophy seems well-suited to our turbulent times. With a new lease on life, and a beautifully restored Inn, Roycroft will continue to provide a link with Hubbard and his engaging, and still-relevant, ideas.\

IF YOU GO:

VILLAGE WALKING TOUR: Just a 20-minute drive from Buffalo, the village of East Aurora is a charmer. A pamphlet published by the museum lists all the buildings on the Roycroft campus, as well as houses owned and designed by former Roycroft artisans. Everything is within easy walking distance of the Inn and campus, and the entire tour can be done in a day. In addition to seeing Roycroft sites, the Methodist church on East Aurora’s main street has 26 Tiffany stained glass windows. The toy manufacturer Fisher Price is based in East Aurora, and has an excellent toy museum. The Five and Dime store on Main Street is another great place to explore.

HOTEL: The Roycroft Inn has 22 elegant suites all decorated in Roycroft style and named after artists, musicians and writers. I stayed in the Rembrandt room which has a view of the cloistered garden. Telephone (716) 652-5552 or fax (716) 655-5345. The Sunday Brunch is highly recommended.

MUSEUM HOURS: The Elbert Hubbard-Roycroft Museum in the Scheide-Mantel House is open June 1 to October 15 on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. There’s a two dollar entrance fee and wonderfully informative tours given by volunteers. The Roycroft Shops are open every day of the week.