Champagne flutes emblazoned with the resort's name? Being alive feels GOOD. That is the closest I can come to describing how Sasha and I entered our Champagne Tower Suite. Just like their forefathers, Cove Haven's tone-deaf architecture of permanent bliss sought to conjure a new, separate world-air-tight, devoid of heartbreak-in order to forget the trauma of the one before it.įor a moment, let me invoke the obligatory first scene of every early-aughts reality television show: A newly-minted batch of contestants are let loose to explore a brand new, tricked-out, hedonistic filth mansion and, in the process, almost shit themselves with joy. It's not surprising that most of Cove Haven's early patrons were soldiers, returning from Vietnam. Cove Haven and other early-70s honeymoon hotels were the direct descendants of the post-WWII newlywed hotel. The history of romantic Pocono getaways begins with the 1950s-era "couples resort." These were vast, faux suburban villages that allowed just-married couples to "practice" domesticity within the safe, controlled confines of a weekend getaway. And that's no mistake Cove Haven's mimicry of midcentury tract housing is intentional. Grouped into passels of homogenous buildings, the architecture of Cove Haven isn't a far cry from Levittown. The check-in associate assures me that, yes, the map is overwhelming, but I'll get used to it in no time. The nightclub is still open (Jenny McCarthy is playing next weekend it's too bad you're missing it), the wedding chapel is next to the tanning beds, and couples' photos will be taken by the lake. Already shell-shocked, I can barely handle the paradox of choice laid out before me. Regrettably, I forget the name of my first friend at Cove Haven (My second friend is Sally, who delivered a burger and two bottles of champagne to my room at 2am), but I do remember the military-like precision with which she rolled out a map of the grounds and began to calmly explain to me the organized bacchanalia that was ahead.
Our true initiation comes at the check-in desk. I have to summon all my fortitude to not strap a chastity belt across my body and walk out. The air is laden with an oppressive expectation that you will boink. The only way it could be more blatant is if there was a medieval prince brandishing his beloved's blood-stained linens outside a castle wall. The air is laden with an oppressive expectation that you will boink.Įverything in Cove Haven-the gift shop's impressive wall of vibrators, the front desk offering a $32 red velvet cake, a fleet of muscled service boys that mill around mysteriously-conspires to make sex happen. It looked like, for the time being, we were in.
I emailed back, "Her name is Sasha." When I got the notification that our reservation was booked, I breathed a sigh of relief. But as recently as 1988, same-sex couples were still a no-no.
Eventually they opened up to anyone who could cough up a marriage certificate, and, inevitably, that turned into any ol' libidinous, consenting adult couple. In the beginning, Cove Haven had a strict newlyweds-only policy. Would Cove Haven-Pennsylvania's romance capital of marital deflowering-want two debauched lesbians to be the cover girls of their family(-planning) friendly resort? Historically, they didn't. My first moment of fear came when Kyle asked for the name of my partner. Like all great stories, this one began with me crying at my desk over a tweet.
COVE HAVEN POCONOS FREE
He wanted to know if I'd like to visit for the weekend with a guest free of charge. Not long after the story ran, Kyle Kziema, the kindly PR manager of Cove Haven's Love Hotel, contacted me. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.Ī month prior, I had written a short history of America's love affair with heart-shaped furniture. The archives will remain available here for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox.
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