"Duluth Dollhouse"

Last weekend, we went hawk-watching in Duluth, where rooms in B&Bs and Canal Park hotels were renting for $200 and up. But we stayed at the newly built Hillside Cottage, which has four bedrooms, three baths, a view of the harbor and decor that was both whimsical and opulent. When I told Torsten it was $150, he couldn't believe it.

"Holy buckets" he said. "You mean $150 an hour?"

It wasn't that opulent. But it was warm, welcoming and obviously well-loved. Its owners, Oakdale residents Carelle and Ted Stein, built it as a retreat and future retirement home, on almost exactly the same spot in Duluth's Little Italy neighborhood where Carelle grew up.

Now, it's like a dollhouse for grown-ups, with carefully chosen folk-art tables and chairs, coral blue-washed stairs, filmy white curtains, chandeliers, satin-and-velvet quilts and scented soaps wrapped in patterned tissue paper. There's a gas fireplace in a little sitting room, a kitchen stocked with lots of teas and a sunny room with a double whirlpool, which we used to warm our bones after we'd stood in the cold for four hours on Hawk Ridge.

For children, there's a cheerful nook stocked with books, videos and toys. Children definitely are welcome, Stein says; in fact, she and Ted hope families will come for the same kind of quality time she and Ted got with their three sons five years ago, when they went to London for their first big vacation and rented a three-bedroom row-house from a warm Italian family.

"We felt so perfect there, so that was our main inspiration," she said. "They shared that with us, and we had the best vacation of our life. We thought, 'Gee this is better than any hotel we could have stayed in.'"

It will be a while before the Steins retire. Meanwhile, they're hoping people enjoy their cottage as much as they do.

"When we get up there, the first thing we do is run for the guest book and see if people had a good time," Carelle Stein says.

Re-printed with the permission of Beth Gauper, our guest.

"August Ballad"

There is a house

In old Duluth

To which some friends did come

and lingered there

to talk awhile

Between the sun and sun.

But when the day

Pried 'op their eyes

Upon the road they went

O'r water falls

Past wave-swept walls

and ships on distance bent.

A tower tall

Climbed to the winds

And treasures ransomed dear

Food slow beneath

the Northern Lights

and jobbered words made clear.

Floors waxed green

By candle's gleam

Old memories shared anew

And road-washed stones

Swept far from home

Grass greened on man-sent dew.

New memories twined

On friendship old

Make "thank you" much too gruff

For freezing time

In days behind

When the past must be enough.