We purchased the building that now houses Lafayette Flats in June of 2014 and worked on its renovation for the rest of the summer, fall and through the winter. By the time we opened to guests in April of 2015, we had learned a lot about the rhythms of the seasons in Fayetteville. Mostly we […]

Each year we dedicate a portion of our vacation rental income to a fund from which we purchase new West Virginia art. Promoting art and artists from our home state is actually in our business plan for Lafayette Flats. You can read more about it here.   For our 2018 Art Fund purchase, we traveled […]

Thoreau said it best: “A taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors.” While we have strived to make the interior spaces of Lafayette Flats as beautiful and comfortable as possible, we are at our core, outdoor people. Most every weekend for us includes at least one walk in the woods, whether hunting […]

Editor’s Note: Wendy Welch is the 2018 New River Gorge Winter Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette Flats. She will be living and writing in Fayetteville through the end of March. This is her third contribution to the Lafayette Flats blog. Wendy is the author of The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, and Fall or Fly: the […]

Editor’s Note: Wendy Welch is the 2018 New River Gorge Winter Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette Flats. She will be living and writing in Fayetteville through the end of March. This is her second contribution to the Lafayette Flats blog. Wendy is the author of The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, and Fall or Fly: the […]

Editor’s Note: Wendy Welch is the 2018 New River Gorge Winter Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette Flats. She will be living and writing in Fayetteville for the next three months. This is her first contribution to the Lafayette Flats blog. Three weeks into a three-month writing residency at Lafayette Flats in Fayetteville, West Virginia, here’s what I […]

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Wendy Welch has been chosen as the 2018 New River Gorge Writer-in-Residence! Wendy lives in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and is the author of The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, a memoir published in 2012 by St. Martin’s Press. She has a forthcoming book about foster care […]

Lotus Rising Since part of Lafayette Flats’ business plan is to promote local West Virginia art, each year we dedicate a portion of its vacation rental income to a fund that is used to buy a new piece for our guests to enjoy.  (You can read more about this component of our business plan here.) […]

Editor’s Note: Kathleen M. Jacobs is the 2017 New River Gorge Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette Flats. Kathleen was born in St. Louis and moved to West Virginia as a young girl. She received degrees from WVU-Tech and WVU Graduate College, and has worked as a teacher at the high school and college levels. Kathleen’s writing has […]

Editor’s Note: Kathleen M. Jacobs is the 2017 New River Gorge Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette Flats. Kathleen was born in St. Louis and moved to West Virginia as a young girl. She received degrees from WVU-Tech and WVU Graduate College, and has worked as a teacher at the high school and college levels. Kathleen’s writing has […]