Some of the FAQ’s we get here at Spillian! We welcome your questions, and please feel free to contact us, but here are some answers to some questions that folks have asked us. Please note that prices and policies are subject to change without notice, so please ask if you’ve got questions.
We looking forward to hosting you at Spillian!
Parties at Spillian? Well, we love celebrations. That said, Spillian is available for a minimum full weekend stay, so if you’re looking to throw a one-day or one-evening event, our availability is limited. We sometimes have Sunday evenings available, depending on what’s been happening during the weekend.
And we sometimes have weekdays or weekday evenings free as well, especially with a fairly short turn around booking time. We are booking more weeklong events (mostly corporate retreats and offsites), but when we have a week that hasn’t been booked, we’ll be delighted to explore a private dinner or party with you. Spillian is a very special place to have celebrations like this, so we’re happy to share when we can. Please feel free to call us at 800-811-3351 for more information.
In addition to being a grand place for a wedding, Spillian can be a perfect launching place for your wedding group, providing lodging for the wedding party and a place for your rehearsal dinner and a brunch before everyone leaves on Sunday.
We have a weekend minimum rental for events at Spillian (with the occasional exception for a Sunday evening special celebration), so we’d be happy to talk with you about a rehearsal dinner as part of a full weekend with us. Please call us at 800-811-3351 to learn more!
Do you rent to overnight guests at Spillian? The answer is sometimes!
While we have truly enjoyed our B&B guests over our first two years of business, we are increasingly moving towards our main goals of making Spillian a center for imagination. As such, we are generally booked up with programs or private celebrations most weekends.
We do, however, occasionally have a weekend where we have individual rooms available — usually as part of a special weekend, like Trout Tales, a celebration of all things trout in late March before the season opens, or SpillianFest, a Blues & Eats extravaganza in midsummer; in the quieter season of late winter or early spring; or on the rare occasion that we have a last minute private event cancellation. We sometimes have weekdays available as well. Or please consider joining us for one of our workshops!
We’re always delighted to talk with you, so please call us at 800-811-3351 if you’ve got questions about availability. If we’ve got space available, we’d love to have you come and stay.
We have technology at Spillian, in spite of our old-fashioned feel. We have free wifi throughout the house, and a great sound system. Cell phone service does work here, which isn’t true everywhere in the Catskills! We have internet radio with thousands of stations available, including Pandora, so if there’s a particular kind of music you’d like to listen to, just ask.
We do not have television sets on the property, as Spillian is a place where we invite people to escape the every day world. We do, however, have a big screen for movies and streaming video – you can pop in one of our many DVD’s or hook up your laptop or iPod directly to share your video.
If you can tear yourself away, though, Spillian invites you to drop your devices while you’re here. Our front porch offers some of the best meditative TV in the world, watching the wind in the trees, the clouds roll through the valley, and the deer come to drink at the pond.
If you’re interested in coming for a corporate event, we have all the bells and whistles that you need. Please visit our Corporate Retreats page for more information.
Yes! We can most definitely book a massage at Spillian for you. And lots of other forms of body work as well! We have wonderful massage therapists on call who can do in-room massage with you, and we know a number of other body workers in different disciplines in the area. Please ask about this when you ask about your reservations.
If you’re planning a group event, we can bring in a whole array of services like massages, yoga classes, other spa services, and more, and make them available for your guests, either as part of your hosting package or as an a la carte offering for your guests to add on.
To learn more about all of the extra activities and services you can add on to your event at Spillian, please click here.
Yes! You can most certainly get a drink at Spillian. We have a full hotel liquor license and stock a carefully selected wine, beer, and spirits list, focusing on artisanal and regional offerings.
Mark Somerfield, our Co-Founder, is a UC Davis-trained oenologist and is always delighted to talk wine with folks. We are working with local distillers like nearby Arkville-based Union Grove Distillers to create private label spirits for us, and can steer you to some of the best craft brewed beers, ciders, and distilled spirits in the world. The Catskills is emerging as an goldmine for such flavors!
We are also more than happy to invent signature drinks with you for your special event, or stock a special ingredient. And we love doing tastings! To learn more about our food and drinks at Spillian, click here.
(Also, make sure to ask us about our signature Spillian Root Beer, made from scratch from an old recipe! Right now, we’re making it with dry ice, so it’s non-alcoholic. It’s really special.)
We do our level best to do meet most of our guests’ special dietary needs! We try to provide vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options at most meals. If you have some other need, please let us know and we will try to accommodate you as best we can. We don’t keep a kosher kitchen and if you have serious allergies, please understand that we aren’t set up to have a completely gluten or nut-free kitchen.
If you are coming as a guest to a Spillian workshop, you’ll find information on the registration form asking you about any dietary requests. If you are renting the facility or coming as a guest to someone’s private event, please ensure that either we or your host knows about your food needs well in advance so our chef has a chance to prepare the best options possible for you.
More questions? Please feel free to call us at 800-811-3351.
If you are an individual presenter or organization that is interested in presenting at Spillian, we would are accepting proposals for workshops hosted at Spillian. We would be delighted to talk with you!
We have a wide variety of presenters booking our facility, including movement instructors, life and business coaches, health consultants, body workers, professional performance coaches, and more.
For Spillian to consider producing your workshop, you need to have a national or international audience in place. However, we also offer opportunities for presenting individuals and organizations to rent the space to produce your own event. Please visit our Presenters page to learn more about the different ways in which we could work with you.
If you are an individual presenter or organization that is interested in presenting at Spillian, we would be delighted to talk with you.
We have a wide variety of presenters booking our facility, including movement instructors, life and business coaches, health consultants, body workers, professional performance coaches, and more.
There are several different ways we might work together. Each of these models has a slightly different set of criteria. Please contact us to discuss how your plans and Spillian might fit one another.
Please check out our Presenters page for more information about some of the individuals who have presented at Spillian events in the past as well as details about how we might work with you.
Yes! While Spillian’s program offerings are growing all the time, we generally have a number of weeks and weekends available throughout the year for guests to rent Spillian in its entirety for a private retreat, a corporate offsite, or a celebration. We really love sharing the estate in this way.
Spillian is anything but a traditional vacation rental. When you rent Spillian, you are renting an all-inclusive, luxury lodge on thirty three private acres. It’s a throwback to another era of coming to the mountains, and our guests tell us that it’s unlike anything they’ve found anywhere else.
We have a superb chef on staff who can design custom menus with you; a full liquor license with in-house stock that focuses on hand-crafted wines, beers, and spirits (and the ability to order virtually anything you’d like, as well); and staffing in place to ensure your time with us is seamless.
And we can help you create an experience that’s unique to you and your crew – folding in any number of kinds of experiences if you wish, or just leaving you to enjoy the stillness and sense of being out of time that Spillian brings. Relaxation? Oh, boy, yes.
We are delighted to host your group for a getaway weekend, a corporate leadership gathering, a reunion, or more. Please visit our private rentals page for more information on how to get started. Or call us at 800.811.3351. We look forward to speaking with you!
Can I rent Spillian for my wedding? The short answer is yes!
The longer answer…
While Spillian is not a traditional wedding venue, we are delighted to make the estate available for a limited number of weddings and private celebrations a year as a part of our mission to help people to imagine past what they think is possible.
Weddings can be one of the most important moments of that imagining for couples, and we are excited to work with our wedding guests to create special destination events that celebrate both the site and the couple and their community. We have been so lucky to meet an extraordinary set of couples so far – and are honored to share such an important moment in people’s lives.
Please visit our wedding page to learn about how we make magical weddings happen at Spillian. We look forward to speaking with you about your dreams for a deeply imaginative Catskills wedding that marks the beginning of your life together with each other and your community.
You can learn about upcoming workshops and retreats right here on our Imaginarium page!
Spillian is proud to offer a growing array of programs. For example we offer special dinners, performances, retreats and workshops on imagination through a variety of lenses. We are extraordinarily lucky to have an ever-expanding community of world-class artists and teachers who come and share their joy in imagination with our guests.
We have a couple of traditions building, like SpillianFest every summer — a glorious combination of BBQ and fabulous live music in our meadow.
We are constantly updating our calendar, so please check back! And please join our mailing list to get the latest booking news, special deals, and other cool info (we promise not to bombard you with emails).
Come for an evening of fabulous food, or a salon conversation, come for a weekend workshop to charge up your imagination, or even a week-long immersion to change your life. Come and imagine past what’s possible with us.
We are thrilled to offer our guests a full-service stay at Spillian when you come for a full facility rental. This level of service is one of the things that makes Spillian so unique, as you will be staying in your very own private lodge with all of your staffing needs met.
We have an onsite, private chef who can build you custom meals in a gorgeous commercial kitchen, a full liquor license, and just the right staffing to meet your needs, including event planners, wait staff and bartenders. And we have an overnight concierge who stays on the third floor — out of your way, but available for questions and support for anything you might need. The Spillian mansion is a unique, historic place with lots of layers! Even our guests who want the most privacy are delighted to have our concierge on hand so they don’t have to worry about managing the estate; our staff is quite remarkable in their ability to be available without becoming a part of your event.
We also offer special programming choices, both onsite and offsite; fully-themed weekends, and more, for small personal and business groups and larger groups for life celebrations like weddings. From live music to massages, floral arrangers to hiking guides, cooking classes to wine and spirits tastings, just ask us – we have an extraordinary community we can bring to the party.
Please ask us about some of the very special facilitated sessions that we offer! Spillian is a place about imagining past what you think is possible, and we are particularly delighted to share some of our creative play about pushing past the barriers in your life with our guests. Our co-founder, Leigh Melander, Ph.D. has worked with hundreds of people around the world to help open their sense of possibility.
You can learn more about your full facility rental at Spillian here.
Sometimes our guests ask if they can use Spillian’s kitchen.
We have a fully licensed commercial kitchen, and heartily encourage you to ask us about how we can create amazing meals for you before you assume that you’ll carry the responsibility of feeding your clan. Often, our guests assume that they’ll be cooking, but when they learn about how we do food at Spillian, decide that they’d love to have some amazing custom-designed meals presented by a private chef! Our prices are surprisingly close to what you’d spend on food for your group without cooking, and coming to Spillian and not having to care about anything is becoming one of our guests’ favorite elements of their stay. We don’t often get to live in the luxury of having our own private staff…it can be truly addictive!
That said, if you are really excited about cooking together, we’ll get you set up with the support you need. Our chef and kitchen team are delighted to work out a plan with you to ensure you have a wonderful set of meals. This plan ranges a bit depending upon what you’re dreaming, so please ask us for specifics when we plan your stay.
We have great relationships with local farmers and food producers and can work with you to build custom menus of pretty much anything your heart desires.
We also offer cooking classes and group-building cooking opportunities that could be a special part of your event. We’re finding that guests love this choice as well — it gives them a chance to play in the kitchen, learn something new, and then share the feast. Our kitchen staff is extraordinarily creative and can meet you with virtually any idea you’ve got about what you’d like to cook. We can even bring you out to the local farms to forage your own feast!
To learn more about the extraordinary food happening at Spillian, click here.
Whether you’re looking for the perfect spot to escape with friends, family, or colleagues for a week or a weekend; or bring together your clan to celebrate a major moment in your life – a wedding, anniversary, birthday, graduation – we’re delighted for you to reserve Spillian! And we’re here to make a fabulous experience for you.
We are delighted to speak with you about what you’re dreaming about! First, we should discuss dates and the scope of what you’re thinking about to reserve Spillian. We have a great staff on hand to help you plan every last detail, from menus to activities. Our goal it to provide you with a place where you don’t have to worry about a single thing – and you can be as pampered or as left alone as you desire.
To confirm the dates you’d prefer, we need a deposit of at least 50% of the facility fee plus a signed rental agreement.
While we recognize that organizing a group event can sometimes take a bit of planning, we can only confirm bookings with a deposit. We can book up quickly, so if your heart is set on a particular set of dates, make sure we get you confirmed quickly! Again, we can’t confirm your dates until we’ve received your deposit.
Once we’ve done that, we can explore all of the other elements that will make your event special – from custom-created food and drink menus; special onsite experiences like workshops, music, bonfires, massages, and more; and offsite opportunities like hiking, farm tours, fishing, and boating.
Call us at 800-811-3351 to talk about your special event, be it a small group rental, a wedding, a party, or a facilitated treat. We look forward to imagining the perfect retreat or celebration for you and your tribe. Be sure to check out our Private Rentals pages for lots more information about what we can make happen with you!
As a small facility, when we commit to guests attending our events or renting the estate for a private event, we are often turning other guests away. As such, we have the following cancellation policies in place so we can ensure that Spillian will be here for many years to offer many people a chance to taste its magic! These policies are firm, with no exceptions.
Spillian Workshop Cancellation Policies
- If the cancellation or change is received more than 30 days prior to your arrival date, you will receive a refund of your deposit, less a 10% processing fee.
- If the cancellation or change is received between 14 and 30 days prior to your arrival date, you will receive a 50% refund of your deposit.
- If the cancellation or change is received between 14 and 7 days prior to your arrival date, the deposit is then non-refundable.
- If the cancellation or change is received less than 7 days prior to your arrival date, the full balance for the entire stay will be charged to your card.
- If you fail to arrive on your confirmed arrival date, the entire amount for your stay will be charged to your card.
- Cancellation and no-show charges are non-refundable and non-transferable. There is no refund for early departures.
Spillian Special Event and Facility Rental Cancellation Policies
These policies are for private facility rentals, including small group rentals, corporate rentals, weddings and other celebrations. Please note: we require a 50% facilities rental fee deposit to confirm any facility rental. If we don’t have a deposit from you, your dates are not secured! So if your heart is set on a certain date, make sure you get a signed agreement and deposit to us so we can ensure you claim your time.
Our specific policies depend a bit on the event. Please call us at 800-811-3351 for more details. Thanks!
very sad dog looks like he is thinking of his girl, which is very far away
Can I bring my pet with me to Spillian?
We’re sorry, but no. Though we love animals, Spillian is not set up for visiting four-legged guests.
By federal law, we are required to welcome disability service animals. And we do so with no hesitation!
Here are the caveats, to this, though:
We know that a lot of folks love their dogs and have found that given the federal laws right now about disability disclosures, if they claim their animal as a service animal or emotional support animal, they can gain access to lots of places. We ask that you please not do this here unless your animal is, in fact, trained and officially assisting you with a disability. This does not include emotional support animals.
This is a historic mansion with a whole lot of irreplaceable elements and we have found that even generally well-behaved dogs are often challenged by being in new surroundings, and we have had damage from canine visitors whose humans were astounded that they hadn’t behaved well. There really are major differences between beloved pets and trained service animals.
Want to learn more? Here’s a great article on the differences and why it matters from The New Yorker.
If you bring a service animal and it causes damage, we will require reimbursement for damages, like any other guest that incurs damages.
Unless you truly need yours to function, we ask that you please leave yours at home. Thank you!