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Page 17 · column 4 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
Traffic stopped and crowds gathered at the center of town last Wednesday for the biggest show — nay, the only show — in Washington on a lazy spring morning.
Everyone gawked while The Inn moved out, out to the sidewalk and parking lot in front of the restaurant for a staged photograph for the cover of the 1987 calendar produced by the Rappahannock Association for the Arts and the Community.
Photographers Charlie Tompkins and Henry Eastwood began orchestrating around 10 a.m. After Sheriff John Henry Woodward obligingly set up the roadblocks on Main Street, they directed the “grunt crew” volunteers who hauled giant potted plants, an overstuffed chair, the receptionist’s table, a dining table and two chairs, a food preparation table and various accoutrements from the restaurant.
“What in the heck are they doing?” mused bystander Fred Donald. “They can’t come up with anything that would make that place look any lovelier,” he added, of Rappahannock’s four star restaurant.
It wasn’t a new addition to The Inn, Mr. Donald soon realized. It was theater in the grand tradition.
While Sheriff Woodward diverted huge cranes with oversized loads to the town’s alternate entrances, The Inn’s staff trickled in: waitresses in pearl gray uniforms with white stockings and white collars, bell-hop Michael DeLuise in shocking red cummerbund and bow tie, the cooks in bright blue aprons and snowy white caps, upstairs maids in starched black and receptionist Natalie Embrey, a vision of pink in her classic summer suit and broad brimmed hat.
Chef Patrick O’Connell and Reinhardt Lynch, proprietors of The Inn, arrived to supervise the display of an eclectic collection of edibles: pecan pies still warm from the oven, live lobsters struggling to free their claws from confining rubber bands, a whole fish, plates of muffins, platters of fresh fruit and mounds of morel mushrooms. Jon Morgan swooshed up in his gleaming 1941 Cadillac, donated for the occasion. Diane Welty brought baskets of flowers; Barbara Jolly brought a basket of French bread and beautiful, bright-eyed Claire.
The seats at the table were reserved for James J. and Marie Petrie
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