Maybe I should’ve brought garlic. Or a crucifix. Because I’m about to sleep — hopefully not eternally — in the opulent two-level Dracula’s Fangs suite, where bat eyes glimmer from elegant candelabras, towel hooks are severed hands and a dramatic winding staircase leads to a vampire’s carved throne should I “vant” to kiss his ring. (And yes, my snarky husband is sitting in that chair now.)
This glamorously goth castle, drenched in blood-red furnishings, was inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 horror novel and the classic Bela Lugosi “Dracula” movie — the upstairs bedroom even has an exquisite vaulted ceiling copied after one in the spine-chilling 1931 film. Elsewhere, hundreds of winged bats cling to the curved ceiling over the grand entry hall, dotted with antique mirrors that the Count won’t be able to see his reflection in. Perhaps I’ll just relax on the skeleton-print love seat and have a drink of… wine.
Ironically, I could have a prince, instead of pointy teeth, awakening me if I had booked the place next door. Royal guests in the aristocratic Cinderella’s Gown cottage dream underneath an immense 18-foot-tall bejeweled ball dress doubling as a bed canopy. A huge orange pumpkin carriage, crazily, is actually a bathroom.
I’m just getting started. There are dozens of incredibly ingenious, immaculately detailed themed rooms at The Roxbury at Stratton Falls and its sister property two miles away, The Roxbury Motel. Although out of this world, the retreats are surprisingly nestled in tiny rural Roxbury, a historic hamlet established in 1788 and set in the bucolic Catskill Mountains of upstate New York.
You’ve got to wonder who whips up bizarro rooms such as Maryann’s Coconut Cream Pie, concocted to make guests feel like they’re inside a fluffy dessert baked by the perky “Gilligan’s Island” castaway. Two vibrantly fun and really nice guys, Gregory Henderson and husband Joseph Massa, created, own and run the boutique getaways. I can’t imagine being inside their outrageously inventive brains, but their entertainment backgrounds explain a bit.
After 9/11, the duo fled to the Catskills from Manhattan, where they had co-founded a theater company in Times Square. Actor-playwright Henderson starred in traveling comic one-man shows directed by Massa, who also constructed sets for TV’s “Saturday Night Live.” Massa has done a lot of handiwork at The Roxbury — in Maryann’s room, it took him six months to sculpt the ceiling’s giant meringue peaks surrounded by pie crust crown molding.
“I want guests to feel like they’ve escaped the real world,” enthuses Henderson, peering through his lime-green eyeglass frames. “If they’ve ever fantasized while watching a film or TV show or even seeing a play and wanting to be on the set or in the movie, this is their chance.”
When I enter The Digs, an enormous suspended boulder is about to crash on my head, similar to a heart-stopping scene in “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.” But then, the artifact-decked Digs is an archeologist-adventurer lair, complete with a secret indoor cave to spy on fellow guests in the living room (you never know who’ll steal the Golden Idol). Be forewarned that live fish will ogle your privates — the shower is inset with a 400-galloon saltwater tank guarding Cleopatra’s cursed underwater tomb.
And good luck locating the three hidden bedrooms (one with a bed canopy of 40 bullwhips should your Indy have a fetish). Two are accessible only through the library bookcases. As for the concealed Mayan Temple bedroom, a giant stone wall sculpture of an ancient Mayan deity looms in the cottage’s foyer. Find the obscure lever and the sculpture swings ajar to a room with yet another wall sculpture of a life-size Mayan goddess. Yank her nose ring and a Murphy bed descends.
“There is no such thing as over-the-top,” Henderson insists.
The Roxbury got its start when Henderson and Massa revamped an old roadside motel and opened the lime-green doors in 2004, later adding on. Retro movies and TV shows take center stage. Dorothy fans can skip down the yellow brick road that cuts through the dazzling green Wizard’s Emeralds room. In George’s Spacepad, “Jetsons” junkies can soak in the red chromatherapy bathtub that lights up, alongside the illuminated sink (both imported from Milan, no less).
After slumbering in the bloodsucker boudoir, I spend a night channeling harem-pantaloon-clad Barbara Eden in the Genie’s Bottle suite, which features a sphere-shaped, marble-dusted, magenta-pink, sparkly bathroom meant to make you feel like you’re inside the magic bottle. And yes, I rubbed the sink faucets — duh, they’re brass genie lamps.
Ten years after the motel’s debut, Henderson and Massa bought the Stratton Falls property — with its very own 50-foot cascading waterfall and an 1848 Italianate mansion on site — and decided to erect the eight classy Tower Cottages from scratch. They fortuitously opened (then temporarily closed) in 2020 just as the pandemic hit.
Besides our Dracula digs, I get to see all the suites — and wowie-zowie! Superheroes, Greek gods, King Arthur! Especially jaw-dropping is The Faerie Forest, every inch thickly cloaked in ferns, mosses, rock ledges, mushrooms, twinkling lights and pixies. A child’s large eye peeks from a hole as if looking down into the sprites’ enchanting realm. The staircase railing is amazingly crafted from tree branches foraged from a dead cedar grove in the Catskills.
“Everything has a story,” Henderson says. For example: Cinderella’s ball gown/bed canopy. A bartender at a local restaurant overheard Henderson and Massa talking about how hard it was to find someone to make the garment. It turns out the bartender, Bobby Burns, had been a couture wedding dress designer in New York City and he offered to help.
“With him, we sketched the first iteration of the ball gown on the back of a cocktail napkin,” Henderson recalls. Burns would fashion the lavish fairytale frock with 11,117 rhinestones and so much fabric he had to wrap it around his small Catskills cabin as he sewed.
Just down from Cinderella’s abode is Galileo’s Gate, a posh Renaissance-era astronomer’s mansion until you pass through a neon blue “portal” upstairs. Lay on the bed, switch on the special-effects black light show and space out as elongated jelly fish creatures dangle from an extraterrestrial galaxy of planets and fluorescent UFOs sail across the skies (your walls and ceiling). Beware of the bathroom shower here too — a glow-in-the-dark alien keeps you company. Up on the third level, a glass observatory is equipped with a telescope for stargazing.
The Roxbury rates vary (for instance, starting at $500 nightly for the luxury Tower Cottages and $182 for The Wizard’s Emeralds), but no matter what room the details are insane. Even a TP holder in Dracula’s Fangs is a medieval gargoyle bat. In The Digs, a handwritten note from an “explorer” explains a cannibalistic ritual next to a skull decanter of complimentary port.
Henderson grins. “It’s OCD finding its outlet.”
So how do you arrive at this Fantasy Land? Let’s back up. We flew into Albany, the state capital of New York, and drove a rental car 90 minutes to Roxbury. (It’s three hours from New York City.) By going in early May, I could first cavort with zillions of bulbous flowers at Albany’s color-whirling annual Tulip Festival. Plus I got psyched for The Digs by viewing two authentic Egyptian mummies at Albany’s Institute of History & Art.
Way before you hit the sleepy town of Roxbury, you’re in the pastoral countryside with villages far apart. One afternoon, we take a long drive to Rail Explorers and have a blast pedaling low tandem bikes that ride on old train tracks through the scenic Catskill woods. Another day, we pop into the Union Grove Distillery in Arkville, the closest town to Roxbury. Married owners Brian and Penny Mulder are a kick to chat with, and they proudly pour a “Maple Ukrainian” vodka cocktail made with Catskill syrup.
Of course, you may just want to hang 24/7 at the Roxbury and role-play, or enjoy the meadows, fire pits, waterfall trail and Crooked Cabana swimming pool. While staying in Dracula’s den, my cape-wearing husband (kidding) and I loved sitting on our private balcony and watching the sunset splash over the hills. We ordered in dinner from Chappie’s, the only open restaurant, so we didn’t have to budge.
“I call these ‘roomcations,’” Henderson says. “The Roxbury is like Willy Wonka meets Alice in Wonderland and they take up residence in Oz.”
