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Second floor · Queen canopy

The Lady's Chamber

Abigail Crane slept in this room for twenty-two years, the last eleven of them as a widow. It is the softest room in the house: gray-blue linen, a canopy bed, a deep tub and a window seat made for reading letters that took a year to arrive.

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The Lady's Chamber: a canopy bed hung in gray-blue linen, a dressing table and a tall window with a cushioned seat

Abigail's room

Abigail Crane came to this house as a bride in 1790, four years before her husband Nathaniel finished his new wing. She kept this chamber in the old part of the house rather than moving to the grand new rooms behind it, and a letter of hers that survives (copied into a family album now in our Library) explains why in one line: she liked "the low ceiling and the warmth of the old wall." The old wall is the great center chimney, which still runs up behind the paneling at the head of the bed and still keeps that side of the room a few degrees warmer than the rest.

When Nathaniel sailed for Sumatra in 1800 she was thirty-six. Word that his ship was lost reached Salem late in 1801, the way such news usually did, secondhand from another captain. Abigail did not remarry. She kept the house, managed her husband's affairs with a competence that shows in the account books, and every evening for eleven years she lit a lantern in the small top window under the roof, where it could be seen from the water. She died in this room in 1812, at forty-eight.

We don't make a shrine of it. The Lady's Chamber is a bedroom, and a comfortable one, and we think she would want it used. But it is the room in the house where her presence is most often described, and we would be leaving something out if we didn't mention it.

An 18th-century-style portrait of Abigail Crane in a gray silk dress, holding a folded letter
Abigail Crane, painted about 1795. The original is in private hands; a good copy hangs on the main stair.

What's in the room

The canopy bed is a queen-size reproduction of a Federal field bed, with slim turned posts and an arched tester hung in gray-blue linen that Maren had woven to match a scrap of fabric found under a floorboard in 1995. At its foot is a cedar blanket chest; beside it, a little candlestand table (no candles). The dressing table between the windows has a tilting mirror and, in the drawer, a small bundle of dried lavender from Dr. Pell's replanted herb garden behind the house. We refresh it every week, which makes the scent story harder to test scientifically, and we are at peace with that.

The window seat looks down Mercy Lane toward the water, with a cushion deep enough to fall asleep on and a lamp positioned for reading. The bathroom, through a paneled door, has a clawfoot tub with a handheld shower, a marble-topped washstand and lavender bath salts from a maker in Maine. If you would rather have a stand-up shower, this is not your room; the Captain's Quarters across the hall has a very good one.

Room facts

Floor
Second floor, front of the 1748 house
Bed
Queen canopy (reproduction Federal field bed)
Sleeps
2 adults
Bath
Private, clawfoot tub with handheld shower (no separate shower)
View
Down Mercy Lane toward the water
Stairs
One flight, by the main stair
Also
Window seat, dressing table, Wi-Fi, air conditioning, robes, tea tray

Rates

SeasonMonthsNightly, from
WinterJanuary – March$269
SpringApril – May$299
Summer & early fallJune – September$339
OctoberAll month$399
Late fall & holidaysNovember – December$319

*Rates vary by season and day of the week; taxes not included. Breakfast in the Lantern Room is included. Minimum stays apply on weekends and in October.

Good to know

  • The Lady's Chamber is one of the rooms in our Romance package, and the one most often booked for anniversaries. If you're celebrating, tell us and we'll leave lavender scones from the Lantern Room on the dressing table.
  • The room sits at the top of the main stair, which is where the Lady in Gray is most often reported. You may hear the stair creak at night. That is usually another guest.
  • Guests have described the smell of a candle just blown out. There are no real candles in the room and we don't allow them anywhere in the house.
  • The floor slopes gently toward the chimney, as floors in 1748 houses do. The bed has been leveled; the marbles in the Nursery upstairs have not.
  • The tester and curtains are linen and can be tied back if you prefer an open bed. Please don't hang anything from the posts.

I woke at about four and the whole room smelled of lavender, stronger than the little bundle in the drawer could explain. I wasn't frightened at all. It felt like someone had come in to check the fire.

— A guest, the Lady's Chamber, November 2022