The Pump House
A sixteen-room inn in the Poconos, and the studio's lab: where the spaces and experiences we offer were first made, and tested on real guests.
In about six months, on organic marketing and word of mouth, an inn that had stood quiet for twenty years became the top-rated stay in its region on Google. This is what was made there, what guests noticed, and what it taught.
- #1top-rated in its region on Google, within six monthsGoogle
- 4.9on GoogleGoogle
- 9.2on Booking.comBooking.com
- 300+five-star reviewsGoogle, Booking.com and Airbnb
A sixteen-room inn reopened in 2023, on organic marketing and word of mouth.
How it began
The storm came through the Poconos just before Christmas in 2022 and took the power down across the mountains. At a rental nearby, a family reunion spent the night without heat, without water, without a working septic. On Christmas Day they were moved to the Pump House, a house that had not yet reopened as an inn, and came up the drive with only hours' notice.
We had been displaced from another house due to lack of water, and the Pump House welcomed us with only hours notice. They made us feel welcome and valued guests through the whole stay.
Svetlana had once been that guest: years before, she arrived at a booked rental at midnight to no power, no water and no sheets, and promised herself no one would ever feel that way in a place she ran. At the Pump House, every arrival was set before the guest came, however late: the lamps lit, the season's scent in the air, the bed made.
The house began in the 1840s as a farm and has been an inn since 1906, named for the original well out front, where travelers once watered their horses. It closed early in the 2000s and stood quiet for some twenty years. Svetlana and Jon bought it in 2022 and reopened it on the Fourth of July weekend, 2023: sixteen rooms across three buildings on 3.6 acres in Canadensis.
Six curated spaces
Six analog spaces made for a guest's nervous system: places for calm, slow evenings and unhurried mornings. Each was made for one thing a guest could do there with their hands and senses, and each answers one of the four pillars through one sense.
The tea and coffee atelier
Nourishing, and scent
Svetlana sat in the foyer one afternoon until she saw it: the antique garage table and a wall of cups belonged here. It became a station of espresso and loose teas, chocolate-covered espresso beans from the local chocolate shop, cookies and Turkish rose marmalade, open day and night, and the corner guests gathered in before breakfast.
The main house has a beverage bar with a Nespresso, Keurig, assortment of loose teas, flavor syrups, dehydrated lemon slices, fruit flavored sugar cubes and a water cooler to fill your cup when needed! That in itself won my heart.
The vinyl lounge
Calming, and sound
In the loft, a record player and a curated collection of records, two deep wingback chairs and a lamp turned low. A guest chose the evening's sound, set the needle down and stayed for the whole side, and the house settled around it into a warm hush. Jon, the studio's music sommelier, has put together a collection of records under $200 for a host beginning one: Jon's records ↗.
The book lover's corner
Grounding, and touch
A curated library, chairs at a table by the window and a lamp lit in the corner: a room that asked nothing of a guest but to stay a while. A shelf feels intentional when every book on it was chosen: novels to sink into over a long evening, poetry to open anywhere, the history of the place and its walks, a few beautiful books to leaf through by the fire, and a small shelf in the languages your guests read.
The snack bar and cinema
Nourishing, and taste
Popcorn and juice, a film on the screen, pool and board games beside it: an evening in.
We played pool, made popcorn, had juice, saw a movie, and played board games while playing a vinyl. It was a fun and relaxing night.
The outdoor sanctuary
Calming, and sight
Lanterns hung through the trees over chairs set round a low table, and the lawn laid out for yoga, with hammocks at the treeline. At dusk, with the lanterns lit, it was where guests went to watch the light leave the trees.
The calligraphy workstation
Grounding, and touch
In the loft, under a big bay window, a hundred-year-old secretary desk stood open with a calligraphy set, envelopes and paper. Guests sat down to write a letter to themselves or to someone they love, sealed it and left it with us, and the inn mailed every one. A slow hour with a pen is one of the quietest things a guest can do, and the letter carries the stay home.
What it taughtOne well-made corner changes how the whole house feels, and guests find it without being shown the way.
Want one for your property? The Signature Space, $2,350. →
Two experiences, first run here
Two of the studio's six guest experiences began at the Pump House, as rooms set for one evening.
The Romantic Getaway
Nourishing, and taste
Couples who booked the romantic getaway found the room ready: chocolate-covered strawberries and cheesecake cubes on an antique silver tray, champagne and two glasses, robes laid out. In the morning Jon and Svetlana carried breakfast up on two trays, on their own wedding china.
She went out of her way to prep our room with wine glasses, chocolate covered strawberries and cheesecake, and chocolate. So extremely thoughtful and personal is all of the service during our stay.
Run it in your own property: The lesson opens STR Nexus
The Self-Love Ritual
Calming, and touch
It began with a bride at a small wedding, barefoot through two hours of ceremony, rubbing her cold feet together. Svetlana drew her a warm foot bath before she changed into her second gown, and watched her face change. The spa room was built from that moment: a foot bath, four soak blends in glass jars chosen by scent, and a clock on the wall with no numbers, only the word NOW. Today, with warm oil worked into the feet after the soak, it is The Self-Love Ritual — Pada Abhyanga, an evening for one, and any host can run it.
Run it in your own property: The lesson opens STR Nexus
What it taughtAn experience lands when it is set before the guest arrives, and asks nothing of them but to sit down.
Want one made for your property? The Signature Experience, $487. →
A scent of its own
Scent comes first in the Sensory Hierarchy, because it reaches emotion and memory before thought. So the Pump House had a blend of its own: frankincense, vetiver and geranium.
It was chosen for the guest who arrives the way most do, in the state Ayurveda reads as Vata raised: scattered and a little chilled from the road. Frankincense is warm and resinous and vetiver deep and earthy, the grounding notes; geranium is the softer floral that keeps them from feeling heavy. Many guests find a scent like that tells the body it has arrived somewhere it can rest.
Beside it, each main room carried a scent of its own, so subtle most guests never named it, and for an hour before every check-in the diffusers ran the season's welcome scent.
What it taughtA smell can bring a whole stay back long after the photographs blur, so a property's scent should be one thing, chosen, and the same every stay.
A property's own signature scent is part of On-Site: The Unique Property. →
Booked direct, every day within about three months
The Pump House had direct bookings arriving every day within about three months of reopening, more than from every other platform combined. It got there on organic marketing and word of mouth: a place worth naming, a website of its own that search could read, a Google Business Profile kept alive, and guests who told each other.
In Svetlana's words.
When the reopening was announced, people tagged their families under the post. "Oh my God, The Pump House is coming back! I took your grandma here and proposed to her here." That is where direct bookings begin: with people looking for a place by its name.
The website. I built the inn's own website and had it optimized for search. It told the house's story first, with black-and-white photographs from its own archive, and it had a chat button that rang straight through to my phone. It booked through Cloudbeds, which put our rooms in Google's own booking results: a guest who searched for the inn saw our own rate beside the platforms' and booked it on our own site, with no platform in between. The page that brought the most strangers was a curated guide to the area, with Skytop Lodge next door at its heart.
The Google Business Profile. We set it up for local search and worked it every week. A card with a QR code on each table in the bar opened it, and after breakfast I asked our guests to leave a review. The thank-you text after checkout carried the link again.
The second stay. To the guests who booked with us direct, or said yes at the wifi, the thank-you carried our own website, so the second booking came to us. (On Airbnb and Booking.com, keep links out of the platform's messages: their rules forbid it.) The wifi asked each guest to sign in and whether they wanted to hear from us; about three in four said yes. Guests came back and brought their families, their friends and their colleagues. By the end, more than half of our bookings came direct, about a third through Booking.com, about one in twenty through Airbnb, and the rest through the others.
What it taughtThe platforms send you strangers; that is their gift. Your work is to give each stranger something to name, and a door of your own to come back through.
A rebuilt direct-booking website is part of On-Site: The Boutique Hotel. →
What guests wrote
Each room had its own vibe and story to tell.
I even bought the same bedding when I got home to get the same vibe.
One big bonus for me was in the main bathroom in the house there was feminine hygiene products for anyone to take. It's just a small thing that shows they care about their guests.
I'm thinking of going back a second and a third time.
From the reviews guests wrote and the testimonials they recorded at the Pump House, 2022 to 2024.
What it taught
The Kulachka Framework was developed and tested at the Pump House, on real guests, through every season of a year and a half: what a tired traveler needs at the door, what settles them by evening, what brings them back. The Pump House closed in 2024. The framework did not close with it. It is the method on every page of this site, and it is yours to use.
For an owner who wants this in their own property, it begins with a conversation.
A property with a story like this one? Inquire.