14 Mercy Lane · Salem, Massachusetts
Nine rooms in a sea captain's house a short walk from the waterfront, a breakfast worth getting up for, a serious dinner in the old chapel wing, and a lantern that has been lit in the top window, one way or another, for more than two hundred years.
We are a small place, and we have learned to do a few things carefully rather than a great many things in a hurry. Here is what the old house is for, in roughly the order guests discover it.
Nine rooms, no two alike: original 1748 paneling in the Captain's Quarters, a private stair to the widow's walk, slanted garret ceilings under the roof, and a dog-friendly suite in the carriage house. Every room has its own story, and Samuel will tell you yours at check-in if you ask.
See the rooms
The Lantern Room serves a full breakfast every morning, included for inn guests and open to the public Wednesday through Sunday from 7:30 to 11:00. Come for the brown-butter johnnycakes. Stay for the Captain's hash. No reservations, so come early.
The breakfast menu
The Ledger is Chef Dee Okafor's restaurant in the old chapel wing: New England seafood with touches from her grandmother's Nigerian kitchen. Chowder, cod with a benne-seed crust, a five-course tasting Wednesday to Saturday. The bar is in the old viewing parlor. We've improved the seating considerably.
Dinner at The Ledger
Weddings in the garden for up to 180, dinners in the Great Hall for 80, and sunset elopements on the widow's walk for six. Wren Halloway and her team have planned everything from a two-person vow at dusk to a full house buyout with a tent on the lawn.
Weddings & eventsThe Crane & Lantern House was built in 1748 by Captain Josiah Crane, a Salem merchant in the West Indies trade, as a center-chimney Georgian house with wide pine floors and paneled rooms. In 1794 his son, Captain Nathaniel Crane, home rich from the new East Indies voyages, added the Federal rear wing and the railed walk on the roof. In the two centuries since, it has been a captain's home, an apothecary, a boarding house, a funeral parlor, a run of tired apartments, and very nearly a parking lot. Since 1997 it has been an inn, and since 2014 it has been ours.
Everyone asks, so we'll say it up front: no, the house wasn't here in 1692. It arrived fifty-six years late and has been making up for it ever since.
Rooms are on four floors and there is no elevator, which is the honest price of sleeping in a house this old. The Apothecary, on the ground floor, is our accessible room with a roll-in shower.
King bed, a sitting room, and a private stair to the roof walk where Abigail Crane kept her lantern. Sunsets over the harbor are included.
See the room
Abigail's own bedroom: a queen canopy bed, lavender on the sill, morning light across the original floorboards.
See the room
Queen bed plus a daybed under the eaves. Our "most haunted" room, by popular vote. Read the log on the nightstand and add a line in the morning.
See the room
A king bed, a kitchenette, a private patio, and room for up to two dogs. The only place on the property for guests under ten.
See the roomWe can't promise you an appearance, and most guests sleep straight through. But the house has three long-time residents who have never checked out. Abigail Crane, the Lady in Gray, is seen on the widow's walk and the main stair, and she smells of lavender and candle smoke. Little Tom, a boarder's child from the 1870s, still rolls his marbles down the third-floor hall. And someone, somewhere in the old apothecary, is forever mixing peppermint.
None of them has ever been any trouble. Samuel tells their stories on the nightly Lantern Ghost Walk, which is history first and stories second, and never a jump scare.
Two courts behind the carriage house, free for guests, paddles to borrow. Saturday clinics with Benny Ruiz and the Thursday "Pickle & Pint" social in summer.
The courts
Sundays from 2 to 5 in the Library with Madame Corvina: a twenty-minute reading, a pot of tea and a lavender scone, $40. For reflection and enjoyment.
Book a reading
Saturdays at 3 in Dr. Pell's old workroom. Pour your own beeswax lantern candle and take it home. $55.
Workshops
A Saturday walk through Dr. Pell's replanted medicinal garden, croquet on the lawn, six bikes to borrow, and Samuel's free history talk in the Library every Thursday at 7.
All activitiesWe came for the ghosts and stayed for the johnnycakes. Samuel knew the name of every captain in the harbor in 1795, and the bed in the Captain's Quarters was the best night's sleep we've had in years.
— Anjali and Jon, the Captain's Quarters, May
I did hear something roll down the hall at about two in the morning. I'd like to say it was the radiator. I wrote it in the log anyway.
— Ellen, the Nursery, October
Our elopement was six of us on the widow's walk, six more in the garden below, a violinist, and the harbor going gold. Wren thought of everything, including a scarf for my grandmother.
— Lucy, Elopement at Dusk, September
The dog had his own bed, his own biscuit, and frankly a better view than we did.
— Dana, the Carriage House Suite, July
The Ledger serves dinner Wednesday through Sunday until 9:00 pm. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays except in October.
