Granbury Texas a center for the arts

Granbury Texas, is definitely the place to come if you are interested in the arts. The new artistic retreat center at the Iron Horse Inn makes Granbury even more of a destination for art lovers! Amazingly, Granbury has 4 excellent art galleries, and on the last Friday of every month all of these galleries stay open for "Gallery Night" from 5 - 9pm. What a treat! The galleries include
"Your Private Collection" on the historic town square, "Studio 216" on West Pearl Street, "Lake Granbury Art Association's Shanley House" on North Travis Street, and "The Langdon Center" on East Pearl Street.

Romantic Valentine's Weekend Getaway Special

Paul and I just spent a wonderful half hour sitting on our lovely old porch in our amazing Iron Horse Inn and watching the sun setting. The sunsets here at the inn are spectacular, and watching the wonder of it all, we realized that this is the perfect place for a romantic getaway! You can watch the sunset together from our beautiful Baron's Balcony suite, from either of our two living rooms, from the large porch, from the brand new art studio, or from the 1 acre garden. What a special place we have here!!

We have a romantic getaway special for St. Valentine's Day, in February, with flowers, chocolates, sparkling wine and yummy deserts. The perfect way to get away from it all with your sweetheart.

painting and quilting retreats in Granbury Texas

Some exciting news from the Iron Horse Inn Artistic Retreat Center- we have just reduced our prices to very reasonable rates. It is now possible to do a 5 day quilting or painting retreat, with 24 hours of instruction with some of the best artists in the country, stay in a luxury bed and breakfast, enjoy tasty light lunches and spend as many hours as you like in the studio working on your project, all for as little as $500! Or take part in a 3 day artistic retreat for as little as $350.
What a perfect gift to yourself for the New Year or for someone special in your life who loves to immerse themselves in creativity.

Other exciting news is that we have just signed up the incredibly talented Sante Fe artist, Mike Mahon. Mike will be teaching at a 5 day painting retreat from June 22 to June 25.

quilting retreat in Granbury Texas

We are getting very excited about our upcoming quilting retreat here at the Iron horse Inn, Granbury, Texas. The very talented quilt artist Lenore Crawford will be teaching her unique method of art quilting at our brand new facility. Lenore's work has been featured on the cover of the American Quilters' Magazine in the 2007 Spring issue and the 2008 January issue. She is the recipient of many prestigious awards including the Best tof Show at the Midland MI Artist Guild All Media Show, and the Judges' Choice Award at the Pacific International Quilt Festival.
The texture and warmth which she achieves from the fabric itself along with fabric painting, gives this art an impressionistic feeling that only this medium can produce.

The workshop runs from Monday January 12 to Thursday January 15. Price for the workshop includes your room, breakfast, lunch, a total of 24 hours of class with Lenore and use of our purpose built art studio for 24 hours per day.

There are still a few spaces left at this workshop, whether you are interested in staying at our beautiful old inn in one of our beautiful rooms, or would prefer to come during the day to attend Lenore's workshop. Either way, you will be guaranteed a fantastic time, with a small group of other folks interested in art quilting.

Construction has been completed on our new art studio and we are delighted with the results. We are just putting the finishing touches on the paintwork and waiting for the new carpet to be installed in the next couple of days.

Don't miss this great opportunity to study with one of the finest quilt artists in the country, save yourself having to travel a distance to take part in her workshops, come while she is here in Granbury Texas!

new year's eve in historic Granbury Texas

We are looking forward to the New Year here at our historic Granbury bed and breakfast - we have lots to look forward to with the opening of our new artistic retreat center on January 12 and all of the talented artists who will be offering workshops in our new studio.

We have discovered that Granbury knows how to celebrate New Year's Eve! There are at least 5 celebrations taking place around the town on December 31st.

The Opera House, on the historic square will be holding a New Year's Eve Gospel Concert.

The Granbury Riverboat will be celebrating with a Filet Mignon dinner, a Murder Mystery and dancing.

The City of Granbury will be holding a New Year's Eve dinner and dance at the Resort Conference center

Harbor Lakes Golf Club will be hosting a New Year's Eve dinner and dance

The H6 Ranch, south of Granbury will be hosting it's 7th Waltz across the Pasture with Signature Kidz to celebrate New Year's Eve.

What better place to come and stay after you have enjoyed the many celebrations Granbury has to offer, than our own Granbury Texas bed and breakfast, the Iron Horse Inn. We will be welcoming our guests with complimentary glass of sparkling wine and hand made chocolate strawberries. Then on New Year's day we will be celebrating with a special brunch of black- eyed peas, corn bread, mimosas and all the trimmings.

What a great little town we are living in!

Architect of our B-and-B in Granbury, Texas

This wonderful old house, known as The Iron Horse Inn, here in Granbury Texas is the perfect spot for our artistic retreats. The house was built by master craftsmen who took two years to complete the beautiful intricate woodwork in all of the rooms. In fact the original owner, Daniel Cogdell prided himself on having chosen all of the wood himself in East Texas, without one single knot anywhere! The house is truly a work of art, designed by the architect Wyatt Hedrick, who also built one of the finest examples of Art Deco in fort Worth - The Texas and Pacific Railway Terminal.







While researching the work of Wyatt Hedrick I found that he also built the fabled Shamrock Hotel in Houston, which at the time was the largest hotel in America, with the largest swimming pool in the world!. Sadly the hotel was demolished in 1987. It was apparently built for a wealthy oil tycoon in 1949 for the sum of $21,000,000 (or the equivalent of $200,000,000 today)!



Being an Irish woman, I was fascinated to discover that the Shamrock Hotel was opened on St. Patrick's day, had a green roof and had it's rooms painted in 60 shades of green! The original owner was of Irish descent and was known as "Wildcatter McCarthy"

One more interesting tit-bit I found on my web surfing adventures - "Wildcatter McCarthy" was in fact the inspiration for the fictional character Jett Rink in the novel "Giant", who was played in the movie by James Dean.

You never know where internet searches will lead you!

Welcome to my new Granbury, Texas, artistic retreat center blog

Hi and Welcome to my new blog. I am so excited to be getting so close to realizing my dream of opening a Texas artistic retreat center!

Starting January 12th. we offer our first five day art retreat with a very gifted quilt artist, Lenore Crawford.
Lenore made this incredible quilt, which we are lucky enough to have on display at the Iron Horse Inn Bed and Breakfast in Granbury Texas


Our art studio is almost completed, our builders have been working hard and are doing a great job. It will be a beautiful, bright and airy, two story space, ideal for all sorts of art work.

I have loved arts and crafts since I was a small child, in fact my mother used to say about me when I was very little - "give her a piece of paper and a scissors and she will be happy all day!" That joy of creativity has never left me, so I am delighted to be able to surround myself with many talented artists over this coming year.

Many years ago my mother brought me with her on a weekend to an artistic retreat center in Ireland, where I am from, to do a quilting workshop, and I loved everything about the experience. The fun of getting together with other women who loved creativity, the community and the beautiful old historic house and gardens. This special center in Ireland is called "An Grianain" and is run by a very interesting womens' organization called the "Irish Country Womens' Association". This experience was without doubt where I got my inspiration to open our artistic retreat center here in Granbury, Texas.

Check out our website for information about our artistic retreat center, including teacher bios, and a calendar of events for 2009. Check back regularly as we plan on adding more classed soon.