Emily says "Welcome to Eureka Springs."
- John-Michael Scurio
- Jul 12
- 6 min read
It was a muggy evening in Eureka Springs on Monday, June 30, 2025, when I checked into The Emily Dickinson Suite at The Cliff Cottage Inn.
I had a busy, busy Monday at my office, and so I was later than I wanted to be when I arrived. As I walked up to the door of this stunning suite, there was a little white moth that fluttered outside the door, and I couldn't help noticing how it moved. Quiet, delicate, and determined, and it was in that moment when a woosh came over me as I realized - OMG! It's her.
Emily Dickinson
The woman in white. The Belle of Amherst. The reclusive genius who baked gingerbread in the shape of coffins and mailed her poems off like they were messages in bottles tossed into some cosmic ocean. Most people wouldn’t naturally draw a line from the frosty windows of 19th-century New England to our lush, layered Ozark hills, but I'm not like most people.
When I sat down to conjure up the inspiration to write about this stunning suite, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to wander. It was in that moment when I realized that Eureka Springs and Emily Dickinson were clearly cut from the same curious cloth. I mean, if Eureka somehow wooed me here, of course there's space here for Emily, too.
The Dress
The dress, made of a cotton fabric with mother-of-pearl buttons, is a style known as a wrapper or a house dress, worn by women as everyday clothing for doing chores and other activities inside the house. It was not a particularly unusual or expensive dress for its time. The dress is primarily machine stitched, with supplemental hand-stitching. The maker of the dress is unknown. This is a picture of Emily Dickinson's white dress, which has grown in popularity and used to symbolize herself and her poetry. People have made biblical connections to her use of white in her poetry and people often theorize that white was her favorite color to wear.
A Town Like a Poem
Eureka Springs isn’t just a place. It’s a feeling, an energy, a lyrical sort of place that seems to breathe in prose. Here we have winding streets that refuse to follow any manmade grid, and Victorian homes perched on limestone ledges like stubborn, lace-clad rebels. This town doesn't just exist, it insists.
Emily would’ve loved it here.
I can only imagine that for her, it's not the touristy places, but the places and spaces in-between. The moss on a shaded stone stairway, the stillness between footsteps in Basin Park after a rain, the scent of honeysuckle carried by the breeze up Mountain Street. All of it says something.
When I think of Emily, I think of a person to whom saying something in a way no one else could was something of a signature of hers. It is what she did best.
Quiet Thunder
Born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson wrote over 1,800 poems, most of which remained hidden away in a locked box until after her death. She never married. Rarely left her house. What she lacked in travel, she made up for in metaphysical mileage. She was obsessed with the unknowable ... death, God, bees, the shape of silence. Her voice was featherlight and ferocious.
Dressed mostly in white. And yet, beneath that stillness was a storm.
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant...”
“Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me...”
“Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul...”
She wrote about death like it was an old friend. About nature as if it had a voice. About God, pain, madness, eternity. She wrote all of this from her little room overlooking an orchard.
Now, Eureka Springs may not have produced Dickinson, but oh, honey, it understands her.
Because here, we talk to ghosts. Here, nature is the main character. Here, death isn’t just a concept, it’s a museum tour, a Crescent Hotel ghost hunt, or the sound of leaves falling too soon.
The Ozarks Features the Belle of Amherst
Tucked just up the hill from Main Street just seventeen steps away from it all, The Cliff Cottage Inn is one of those Eureka spots that whisks you away from it all. Perched high above the hum of the town, this lovingly restored Victorian gem is no ordinary inn.
The Emily Dickinson Suite is a tribute not just in name but in atmosphere. It’s quiet, graceful, and composed. The kind of place where you could absolutely pen a masterpiece… or vanish for a decade with nothing but your thoughts, your tea, and a wild-haired journal.
I took it upon myself to peruse the in-suite guestbook, and I became delighted to learn that this famous poet, enamored with pain, madness, and death still brings so much life and light to others who visit Eureka Springs and stay here in this place that whisks you into the 19th century. I read so many wonderful words written by guests . . .
"Our night in the Emily Dickinson room was amazing."
"Needless to say, Eureka Springs, Thorncrown Chapel, and The Emily Dickinson Suite at Cliff Cottage are all very special places to us!!"
"What an amazing little cottage."
"The tub was a fan favorite."
"Emily could have easily secluded herself here and been inspired to write more poems."
"The Emily Dickinson Suite was certainly one place we didn't mind being "snowed in."
"The rooms were lovely, very Emily Dickinson."
"She actually said, ABSOLUTELY YES!!"
I couldn't resist this moment, so I, too, penned something in the guestbook.
If Eureka Springs were a person, it would wear white, speak in riddles, and hide secret doors in plain sight. It would be equal parts healing spring and haunted house. It would be Emily.
Both Emily and Eureka dare you to slow down, listen closer, feel more. They don’t scream for your attention -- -- they beckon. And if you’re lucky, you answer.
Emily once wrote:
“Much Madness is divinest Sense, To a discerning Eye...”
To me, it’s a line that could double as the town motto of Eureka Springs.
Let’s be honest, this town runs on a delightful, defiant kind of madness. We believe in faeries and festivals, in haunted hotels and healing springs. We believe that old windows open to new worlds and that art belongs on the sidewalk just as much as it does in a gallery. We don’t do straight lines. Or normalcy. Or boring. Neither did Emily.
A Room of Her Own
So, if you ever feel the tug ... the quiet, persistent pull toward solitude and sweetness ... please come visit Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Stay at the Cliff Cottage Inn, in the Emily Dickinson Suite. Leave your inbox behind and pack a pen.
When the stars rise over Eureka and the moths gather near the porchlight, you might find yourself writing words in the guestbook that surprise you.
“I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose –”
Well, Miss Dickinson, you’d be pleased to know: your house of possibility has a view of the Ozarks.
P.S. If you see that little white moth tonight, don’t be startled.
She’s not lost. She’s just home.❤️
That night, I dreamed of folded letters and garden gates, of lace curtains stirred by soft night air. I felt the hush of the limestone bluff, the hush that Emily might have known, and the quiet certainty that something beautiful had passed through me.
The Emily Dickinson Suite isn’t merely a room—it’s a poem you sleep inside. A retreat into thought, love, and stillness. For those seeking solitude with soul, or romance with reverence, this place remains.
Tucked just above the galleries and gardens of downtown Eureka Springs, the suite awaits at Cliff Cottage Inn, a charming and historic bed and breakfast in the Ozarks.
