Pilgrim's Inn — Sarah Clarkson

I'm glad you all like this cottage/house idea too! I'm going to run with it. I've decided to call it Pilgrim's Inn. Now, there are several reasons for this. First, the idea of journeying, as many of you know from my old site being about an itinerant idealist, is something that I think captures the essence of life here on earth. To have a house where pilgrims are welcome, where all who search and seek, and want with all their hearts to find that high, narrow road to Goodness, are welcome, I love it. We're all gypsies to an extent, and yet, we all need shelter, these houses and homes where we get a taste of what it is we are journeying toward. (I'll be blogging about this.)

Second, this name comes straight from one of my top five in all the world favorite books: Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge. The whole story captures the essence of what I want to accomplish in this home, virtual or real. The book is about a family, weatherworn in soul and body after WWII, who move from London to the country, buy a rambling old house that used to be a "Pilgrim's Inn" (a place in medieval and later times where religious pilgrims would be welcomed by monks on their way to cathedrals and shrines) and have their souls utterly renewed. This story, with the central character being an actual house, is one that has shaped my idea of home as an act of creation, and place of redemption, as almost nothing else has.

So. I will be majorly tweaking this site in the next weeks to make it feel like an actual house. Not sure how I'll manage that yet, but manage it, I will. It's an exhilarating design process. I'm having more fun than I thought I ever thought technologically-resistent me ever could. And yes, there will be room for as many souls as ever want to crowd in! I'd have ten kids over for a feast in a wink. My sister plans on having at least a dozen, and the celebrations we'll hold in this place will be rather epic.

As a parting thought: Goudge's Pilgrim's Inn has always been my model, but Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings was the first inspiration for my dreams. This quote sums up my plans for this place:

Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, "a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all." Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.

Isn't that lovely?