I’ll admit the idea of a staycation never really appealed to me. Staying home for an extended period of time on purpose? Not for me. It’s not that special vacation sort of relaxing – it’s more of the I-did-nothing-for-several-days-and-wasn’t-productive-and-am-not-refreshed sort of relaxing. But I realized that I was doing staycations all wrong.
To do them right, you don’t leave town, you just leave the house and all those chores behind. A few weekends ago, Michael and I had the perfect Milwaukee vacation at the Brewhouse Inn and Suites. We stayed there last year for our wedding (heart emoji) and had some beautiful photos taken there, but because it was our wedding day, we didn’t spend much time enjoying the hotel itself. We told ourselves we’d come back and really take the place in – and we finally did it!
To give you the gist: the Brewhouse is ameezing. Elegant? Check. Historic? Check. Impeccable, industrial chic design? Check. This place is everything.
What I love the most is that although it’s this beautiful hotel, its past as a brewery is still pretty obvious. And I don’t just mean that they just have artful brewery-inspired furnishings – which they do – but they also preserved some pieces from the brewery itself like the railings, tile and two-story stained glass window. Not to mention the giant copper brewing kettles.
Since this vacation was all about relaxing (and because Michael was wobbling around with a sprained knee), we decided that we’d stay put for the night. We walked to the attached Jackson’s Blue Ribbon Pub and had some Milwaukee-inspired drinks, ordered some room service and called it good.
When the rooms are as comfortable and the lounge areas so lush, it’s pretty difficult to leave. Good thing we vowed to come back soon.
A lot of good stuff is happening around these parts. Michael and I just hit up the Brewhouse Inn & Suites, had our anniversary and are set to help a handful of loved ones celebrate their weddings in the upcoming weeks. To kick off wedding season, we headed all the way to Montego Bay, Jamaica to see our pals Joe and Mara tie the knot. It was, of course, beautiful.
When I moved in, this little Magnavox stereo was being used as a nightstand. My mom and I shuffled it out to the living room and gave it a whirl (probably for the first time in 40 years). She ran a touch slow, but I’ll tell you the first few weeks I stayed in the house (sans internet and television) having it to play the Godspell soundtrack was my saving grace. It was a pretty emotional time, so filling up the house with “You Are the Light of the World” and “Day by Day” really gave it (and me) some life.
But after a few months, the slow turntable was getting worse, and playing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” at half speed was pretty spooky. Because she’s the greatest, my aunt took the hi-fi in for repairs as a birthday gift. It took two months for the repairman to sort the thing out, during which we found out that this 60-year-old hi-fi is pretty rare. He also discovered that no matter how hard he tried, that old turntable wouldn’t keep spinning at that 33 1/3 rpm-s that you need. In the end, he dropped in a new turntable; better a new functioning one than an aggravatingly slow original. It made me a little sad to see the original one go, but I have to tell myself that a new, fully-functional table is better than some groggy, never-quite-right original.
And I wanted to add that the clever title came from my mom. She remembers a stereo shop called Hi-Fi Fo-Fum growing up (she also remembers pretending this record player was a piano when she was little – talk about a good memory).
