The Scheherazade Room holds layers: carpets hung above the bed, elephant lamps standing sentinel, antique wardrobes and dressers, old artwork, and a brass genie lamp. A room drawn from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, and watching over it all, golden and serene, with false eyelashes, is Celeste the Camel.
Celeste came to us before Spillian did.
The winter before we found this house, I came to the Catskills alone. Mark was still in California, working to sell our house, while I was living on a hillside farm with two horses, several dogs and cats, and the hope that the right place would reveal itself. I was working remotely for a publishing company, and spending my free time out wandering the mountains, looking for a place where we could dream Spillian into being. I didn’t know anyone. It was a long, snowy season. So I made myself go out—volunteer, show up at community events, start putting down roots.
One evening, a woman I’d met invited me to a preview for a local antique auction. And there it was: a life-sized brass camel with a monkey on its back.
I wanted it. I needed it. How could anyone live with the knowledge that such a thing existed and not bring it home? My plan was to buy it and tuck it into the woods for Mark to discover when he arrived.
But then came the irritating voice of reason: we owned houses on two coasts and were possibly not at peak-camel-acquisition moment. So I called my mother, who has long been my co-conspirator in these kinds of quests and misadventures, and asked her what she thought the top bid should be—before one’s husband starts contemplating divorce over less-than-practical purchases. We decided on a number and I went to the auction the next day, determined. I figured there wouldn’t be a huge number of people clamoring for such a treasure at an auction in a small village in the Catskills.
I was wrong.
A young couple from the city had clearly fallen just as hard. We bid ferociously. Long past the number I’d set. I looked at the set of their jaws and knew: they were taking her home.
So I let go.
It was Christmas. My family was gathered at my parents’ home in Pennsylvania, but I was snowed in with horses, dogs, and cats, feeling remarkably sorry for myself. I called every day to see what they were doing, and each time I asked, “What color balloon was it?”—a family tradition from A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, quoting Eeyore after he misses his birthday party and hears that the balloon meant for him had popped. It’s the question we ask when we know something lovely has happened and we weren’t there for it.
They were strangely quiet every time I asked.
A few days later, my older sister pulled up at the farm in her pickup truck. In the back was a life-sized papier maché camel—and a handmade sock monkey with a fez perched on her back. She and my then-young nieces had made them together in secret.
The camel’s name was Celeste. The monkey was Moe.
Celeste moved into our lives before we found the mansion that would become Spillian, but she carried the spirit of it—imagination, mischief, boundless kindness, and a story waiting to be told. She became the inspiration for the Scheherazade Room.
Moe the First eventually went walkabout with some early guests, never to return. I was heartbroken, but consoled myself by choosing to believe he was off having adventures.
Some years later, I brought a guest to her room for a Spillian workshop. Her name was Celeste. When she saw the camel, she lit up. “Oh, I love camels,” she said. Of course I introduced her to her namesake and told her the tale of Moe the First and his mysterious departure. She was delighted.
A few weeks later, Moe the Second arrived—a new handmade sock monkey in a fez. A gift from Celeste the guest to Celeste the camel.
This is how Spillian lives and breathes.
People come, and they bring magic with them. They take a bit of Spillian’s energy with them when they leave—something imagined, or remembered, or stirred. And often, they leave something behind in return: an object, a memory, a moment of kindness, a spark of story. Many of our most treasured things have come to us this way, from people who began as guests and became friends.
The Scheherazade Room is a tribute to that kind of generosity. To the thousand and one stories that shape a place not just from the inside out, but from the outside in.
Celeste and Moe the Second are still there, holding court—and waiting for the next tale to unfold.
If you’re curious to go deeper into the house, stay tuned—we’re opening the doors, one by one, to each of Spillian’s eight guest rooms. Every room holds a tale.
See you there!
Leigh Melander, PhD
Spllian Co-Founder/Partner
