Great innkeepers, like great farriers and shearers, are a rare and declining sub-culture. Americans are in a rush, and don’t care much about the finer details of innkeeping, but the innkeepers do. We’ve known Steven for several years now, he is the assistant innkeeper at our favorite inn, and he has this combination of courtesy, love of detail, and appreciate of  comfort and style.

He has an innate sense of what makes everything right, and a horror of things that go wrong. He also has a gift of grace, he uses humor and warmth to keep  standards high and visitors happy. He acts sometimes when he isn’t work, and so agreed to sit still for this portrait.

There is no detail too small for Steven to care about, notice, or fix.

Steve is one of those figures in our live that we don’t see very often and never socialize with, yet he is important to us, he has watched over us during some critical times in our lives, and we always feel safe and cared for around him and people like him. Some people just have that gift, I don’t.

When he performs in a play in central Vermont this Spring, we will try and go. When I see Steve, I learn a lot about grace and hospitality. I’m sure he wants to strangle some of the difficult and demanding guests, but you would never know it to watch him.