Introducing: glamping, Covid-style.
For four weekends in October, a hospitality team in Pennsylvania is hosting a pop-up glamping experience with meals by a James Beard-nominated chef, real beds in safari-sized tents, an “excursion concierge,” open-air happy hours, yoga, and various other accoutrements of five-star hotels. The price tag: $1,800 per person for two nights, or $3,000 per couple.
Hideaway Co., a group that opened the Ace Hotel in Pittsburgh, is launching the glamp-site on the grounds of the Barn at Maple Falls, in the Laurel Highlands of Western Pennsylvania. And Bethany Zozula, the chef at the Ace’s restaurant, Whitfield, is overseeing the food. On the menu are entrees such as local lamb and trout, and breakfast fare including buttermilk biscuits, caramelized onion and gruyere quiche, and beet-cured salmon. All your typical camp chow.
There are 30 tents, most about six feet apart from one another, says Hideaway Co. founder Anna Baird, each one tucked into the trees. But guests who want to will be able to socialize a fair amount. The weekend starts with a Friday welcome reception and dinner; yoga and mindfulness sessions are planned for Saturday and Sunday mornings. Meals can be taken in the open-air dining tent, or delivered to your private tent and firepit. An open-air bar lounge will have a full bar and “libations curator.” (Meals are included in the package, by the way, but most alcohol costs extra.)
Massages are done in the barn, with doors left open for fresh air, and an “excursion concierge” can help plan outdoor activities or outings to Fallingwater.
One thing $900-a-night does not buy: En-suite bathrooms. There will be three trailers—one for each cluster of ten tents—with individual hot showers and toilets, cleaned after each use. After all, it wouldn’t be camping without roughing it a little.
Sherri Dalphonse joined Washingtonian in 1986 as an editorial intern, and worked her way to the top of the masthead when she was named editor-in-chief in 2022. She oversees the magazine’s editorial staff, and guides the magazine’s stories and direction. She lives in DC.
