Thinking of ways to lighten our impact on the Earth is nothing new for the Stanford Terrace Inn. Six years ago, we became the first hotel in Palo Alto to receive a Green Business Certification.

So let us pamper your visitors and bestow the gift of time to you, and the gift of green to Mother Earth. Check with us in regards to what select weekends this is available.  Please check with reservations for availability at 800.729.0332.

Reservations

At the age of eighteen my energy was almost completely devoted to separating myself from my family. I wanted to be on my own, take care of myself, a right of passage that I couldn’t wait to begin and a road that I was ill-equipped to travel.

If I had to describe myself at eighteen I would have to say… a hard shell, protecting, often unsuccessfully, a sensitive heart. Most certainly the importance of relationships was often distorted by my own ego disguised as a self-assured young woman.

So why after all these years would I be full of emotion about something as simple as the sharing of a recipe?  I just *have* those moments now (perhaps because my own daughter will leave home shortly).  I look at my aunt and realistically I have only a dozen more years of her company, an amount of time that will pass at breakneck speed.  We don’t live close; moving away seemed like such a good idea.  She has visited twice in the 25 years I have lived in the States and although I travel north more often now, it is the thought those moments of unsolicited closeness and sharing bring, that I miss, and that make me melancholy.  Those long cups of tea or coffee, the planning of a quilt, the cooking of dinner, the day-to-day connection and involvement that I sorely miss.

I thought nothing of those times when I was younger, even as a young adult having my own family. Retrospectively, thinking of theses moments and realizing they may not always be there, gives me the understanding of how important each moment with another truly is.

Relationships are built over time and in a moment. I believe that we at the Stanford Terrace Inn have a strong understanding of the importance of relationships. As one of many Palo Alto Hotels, we pride ourselves foremost in building and keeping relationships with our guests.  Not just for business, but because these relationships define us.

Namaste,

Barbara

He told me some of what happened on the day that he married my aunt, to whom he will have been married to for almost sixty years.  They married not too many years after WW II in a very small town in Germany, near the border of the Czech Republic.  My Uncle was from East Berlin, and had found himself far from his home after being a prisoner of war during the war’s final stages.  That, of course, is another story.  The only thing he had in common with the majority of people in this new, small town were his German roots, and they had a very different set of traditions than this city boy was aware of.

Nonetheless, he was marrying one of their fairest maidens.  He picked her up in a horse drawn carriage to take her to the church on their wedding day. “Very cool,” I’m thinking.  After the ceremony, as they traveled to the reception in the carriage they were prepared for the interruption of their journey by a pack of kids that had strung a rope across the road, who were waiting for the shower of coins that the newlyweds would toss, to assure their safe journey on the road ahead.  “Doubly cool,” I’m thinking, ready to hear what happened at the reception to complete the story.   When I inquired about it, “Well,” said my uncle, “I am not going to write about what we ate or did after our wedding; it was just like every other wedding, who cares about that?”  Those were the interesting facts after all , and different to what might happen today.

I felt deflated, I wanted to hear more detail, so I asked my aunt what she remembered about her wedding. Well she said “It was tradition that at the reception the bride would be secretly stolen away from her husband and once he discovered her missing he would search the town for her. She would be taken to another restaurant and of course be easily found and recovered to start her new life with her husband.”

“But”, she continued, “he stuck to me like glue and no one was able to steal me away, I really wish that I could have had that experience” she finished sadly.

“That is not too cool,” I’m thinking.

I was curious - I wondered if my uncle knew about this tradition, so I asked.

“No, I never knew that”, he said.

There are never two weddings that are the same, and everyone has their own traditions and stories and memories and details that come from them.  Each is special in their own way, and it is always fun and interesting to learn what people thought of them.  We love to have wedding guests staying at the Stanford Terrace Inn. They bring with them a buzz of excitement and joy, and we reward them by taking care of the details entrusted to us, with the care and attention they deserve.  Don’t hesitate to let us know your favorite stories… or share a private thought about your own.  Love is in the air, as it reverberates from Valentine’s…. did any of our friends or family or neighbors get engaged?  We hope you celebrated the day with someone you love.  At the very least, keep your ears open and you can learn something new about love and tradition! =)

Namaste,

Barbara

I decided that it might be best for me to change careers and landed as a switchboard operator, in a Vancouver hotel. The switchboard was old; a cord board in fact, like you have seen in those old black and white movies. When the telephone rings you plug one cord into the incoming line slot and the other cord into the extension the person is requesting. You have to pay attention to when the line is no longer active to disconnect the calls. This could very quickly become confusing and frustrating and I was glad when they finally upgraded to a more modern system. It has, however, been a great story over the years.

When I arrived at my first hotel job in San Francisco people would say that I did not smile enough. This as it turns out is a result of being Canadian, although friendly we do not tend to be as externally happy as needed in California. In fact when I first started to practice a bigger brighter smile it felt false and insincere. That was 25 years ago and although I feel very much a Canadian I have developed a great California smile.

So how important is all of this anyway? I have had many opinions over the years. Sometimes when I am confronted with an angry guest I wonder what they must be thinking, “This hotel manager got up this morning and went out of her way to make my life/stay miserable and I am so angry I am going to talk to her in an angry condescending way to make her do something to make it better.”  This, of course, is completely counterintuitive to the word “hospitality”.

Everyone that walks through the door of the Stanford Terrace Inn is very important to the success of the hotel. We want to please everyone and make him or her feel welcome and important. We go out of our way to do what we can to make each stay a great experience.  Does that mean that some people will not like the hotel anyway? Most likely.

What happens when you drop a tiny pebble into a large body of water? It has a big effect. I try to think of this when I am speaking with others. I am important and what I say could have a big effect on them. Do I need to be loud, and rude or demean them to force them to bend my way? My power is in my empathy. I don’t always remember but I am constantly reminded that my importance is connected to my kindness and that is when I make the biggest impact.

How important are you?

Shanti,

Barbara

Thinking of ways to lighten our impact on the Earth is nothing new for the Stanford Terrace Inn. Six years ago, we became the first hotel in Palo Alto to receive a Green Business Certification.

So let us pamper your visitors and bestow the gift of time to you, and the gift of green to Mother Earth. Check with us in regards to what select weekends this is available. Please check with reservations for availability at 800.729.0332.

Reservations

POHLEN FOR 3!!!  LAROQUE WITH ASSISTS!

During the game, we had a contest for a free room night at our hotel!

Here is the free throw competition for a free night!  How many could you make in 20 seconds?  Under pressure… in the big time?  It’s hilarious…. the gent in the front doesn’t come close to the winner….  so 3 cheers Omar!!!  Well done and see you soon!

As for me.. I could make a couple, but with this big thing saying Stanford Terrace Inn over my head, I would probably fail.

(But not as bad as this guy)

In my recent trip to the Carolinas it wasn’t until the end of my trip that I noticed the first recycling bins as I stood in line to board the plane home.  But it isn’t all that out there - how about simply recycling? At the hotel where we stayed in Myrtle Beach, there were no recycling bins, nor did I see any in the malls. I remember thinking,  “Are we Californians the only ones trying to save the planet?”

I guess this thought was prompted by my entire experience the week that I had been away.  Several years earlier on a trip to France I had been engaged in a conversation about what action could be taken to reverse the greenhouse effect on the earth.  A young man had said ” just planting more trees could easily make a very big difference.”  So, that week in the Carolinas, the massive bare lawns most houses sported that could easily support a tree, or even ten struck me as an opportunity lost to help the earth.

Trees have always been a part of my life, spending a good portion of my teens living or visiting my aunt and uncle on 20 acres of orchard in British Columbia.  In fact both my cousins are still very involved with trees - one works for PRT, which is the largest producer of container forest seedlings in North America. We talked at length about reforestation. Bottom line seems to be that big companies can buy carbon credits at such a low rate that it is not yet viable for a company like PRT to create a market for this service.  So for now they sell only to lumber companies who are required by law to replant the forests they clear for the purpose of producing 2 x 4’s.

But what about land that could be reforested?  With the acres of farmland no longer viable for farming. who might pay the cost of planting the trees to help us become carbon mutual?  It doesn’t seem like farmers at this point…. just like farming wheat, it has to be worthwhile for the farmers, and right now the cost of carbon credits is too low to make it worthwhile to plant a tree, which seems like a shame.

At the Stanford Terrace Inn  a Palo Alto hotel we are always looking for ways to lessen our carbon footprint, we have no place to plant trees, so recently we started our composting program, producing 32 gallons weekly. Nearly 43% of our ‘garbage’ is actually recyclable and to reach our Palo Alto community goals of Zero Waste by 2021 and 15% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 we need to do everything we can to help.

Planting trees is, in my opinion, a very positive, powerful statement in support of our survival. This is supported by the efforts of Wangari Maathai, a woman who put her life on the line to plant trees in Kenya.

Shanti,

Barbara

Ed. Note: Please check into our partner’s activities, “Canopy”, a non-profit center for street, park, and garden trees in Palo Alto, California.

I remember being anxious and worried, because although this was my paternal grandparent I had never met her before this day. As it was, she was always my favorite, for no other reason then she accepted me for who I was and always reassured me that I was just fine.

This past November I traveled to Charlotte, N.C. I flew from San Jose CA. My daughter unceremoniously dropped me at the curb; I checked my bag and dragged myself into the long, spider like, security line at 5am. Although there are many that travel more frequently then I do, I have traveled enough to know the drill. That day the loud, scary, TSA agent let me know that I know very little about what I needed to do, when she came yelling at me for failing to do the “right” thing when going through the security line.

She rattled my chain. I then stood in another very long line to get a cup of coffee, lined up to get on the plane, stood for what seemed like forever in the narrow aisle of the plane to get to my seat. I listened to the passenger in the seat over from me, talk the entire way to Atlanta. I then traipsed from one end of the airport to the other to get the correct gate for my connection to Charlotte, repeated the boarding and aisle line and arrived in Charlotte hours later with only a pretzel or two to sustain me the entire day.

It is no surprise that a guest arriving at the hotel might be a little bit grumpy and very ready for everything to go smoothly and their stay to be comfortable.

I believe that at the Stanford Terrace Inn a Palo Alto hotel we take care of our guests in a way that lets them forget the trials of getting to their destination. We are there to receive them, make sure everything is taken care of, and give them a respite from which they can start their days rested, nicely fed, (with our great complimentary continental breakfast), relax in the afternoon with a freshly baked cookie and coffee, and of course give them a ride to wherever they need to go within Palo Alto.

We do this because hospitality is our business. Too bad this concept did not start from the curb at the airport. I am sure it would make travel so much more pleasant. But… that’s what *we* do. =)

Shanti,

Barbara

Reservations

When I was very young and we went to the department store for an infrequent shopping trip, the elevators still had operators. You waited, the elevator would arrive, the door opened and the operator would pull back a safety screen with their white gloved hand that would accordion back but when outstretched across the opening would make diamond shapes. Those (usually) women would announce their arrival by letting the anxious perspective passengers know the direction in which they could travel. “Going Up!” would begin their informational announcement and then recite the wondrous possibilities that “going up” would offer. They were as unique as the ringing of the cable car bell, sometimes brilliantly delicious and exciting and others rather dull and mundane. One of those places was “notions”, which is no longer found in department stores, another was “foundations”.

Foundations, so called perhaps because announcing “Ladies Lingerie” was a bit too forward in those days, was a mystery to me. It was certainly not something that was easily discussed, and wasn’t something I actually cared too much about at that age.  My real focus was floating in a bowl, just before the skywalk that took us to our car; I was paying attention to those goldfish that were always for sale, and the slim possibility of getting my mother to agree to buy one for me.  She never did.  She said I had to earn it.

I thought that growing up was really hard. My parents always knew when I wasn’t giving it my all, and they always pushed me to do my best.  I would protest of course, because doing my best wasn’t always the easiest, shortest or the most fun way. In fact it often brought me to tears, made me angry or anxious. Finding my place and achieving the rhythm of always trying to be the best, be noticed, be vital was never easy. I fought against my parents like most kids, trying to do things *my* way, but I always came back to these foundations laid by my elders. Work hard, do your best, perfect your skill, be kind, respect others, be moral.  Although I wasn’t always sure about everything they taught me… there always seems to be easier ways… they have truly served me well.

These are the foundations…. the underlying values and morals of how we walk through life.  Just like in the store - foundations, the underlying base of your clothing.  Of course getting the right “foundation” was also Victoria’s “secret”.  Gone are the days of burning bras, because everything does look a bit better when we have the correct foundation for the perfect dress.

At the Stanford Terrace Inn we also have a strong foundation, but it isn’t as literal as an undergarment or concrete slab. Our foundation is our staff, who take pride in the work that they do making it a comfortable place to work and stay. Our foundations are the owners who give us their confidence, which allows us to be the best at what we do. Our foundations are the guests that stay with us who take the time to share their thoughts with us on how to improve their experience. Our foundation is strong, which helps us thrive.  In fact, if you haven’t noticed, we are wearing a *LOVELY* new dress in the form of a mural. Come take a look. =)
Shanti,
Barbara