Pancakes with “holler hospitality” 

SNUG HOLLOW FARM BED AND BREAKFAST

790 McSwain Branch, Irvine | (606) 723-4786

HOURS: Open year-round (Lunch offered to outside guests on the screened porch, spring, summer and fall. Dinners and accommodations by reservation.)

MENU: www.snughollow.com

This country hideaway celebrates the heart and the harvest of Kentucky.

People from all over the world find their way to this remote “little hollow” set on 350 idyllic acres in Kentucky’s Appalachia to enjoy a quiet retreat. The mountainside setting, with private cabins dotting the landscape, draws artists, writers, musicians, couples and girlfriends—and inspired at least one author to pen a book here and dedicate it to the farm’s owner.

Forty-four years ago, Barbara Napier bought the land that would become Snug Hollow Farm Bed and Breakfast, now served by Jackson Energy Cooperative.

“With help from friends, family and kind strangers I opened in 1999,” says Napier, who named her Irvine bed and breakfast after her sister’s Cape Cod Snug Harbor restaurant.

Napier had a love of cooking and a dream to share the Kentucky experience, one based on “holler hospitality,” as she calls it, a country kind of place, where having nothing to do means everything for guests seeking the kind of solitude that is broken only by birdsong and babbling brooks.

It is no wonder The New York Times bestselling author Jojo Moyes chose Snug Hollow for writing her 2019 novel, The Giver of Stars. It is a fictionalized account of the pack horse librarians who brought books in their saddlebags to eastern Kentucky during the Great Depression. 

Snug Hollow cabins are surrounded by wildflowers and walking trails, and the added charm of rocking-chair front porches. Even better: All meals are delivered to guests at their cabins, one among many reasons Napier’s getaway was recently awarded Trip Advisor’s Traveler’s Choice Award. As Bryan recommended in her cookbook: “Attend to the giving out of your meals.”

Fresh-from-the-garden meals are organic, vegetarian and gourmet, and feature dishes from Napier’s bestselling cookbook, Hot Food & Warm Memories.

“Our garden is our best friend,” says Napier, noting Snug Hollow, a Kentucky Proud member, caters to special diets.

Among the most requested dishes are Snug Hollow’s oatmeal pancakes, homemade biscuits and gravy, chocolate tart, crispy cornbread, “Kentuscan bean soup” and rosemary braided bread.

For Napier, cooking is not a chore, but a daily meditation: “It is a joy for me and a gift for my guests.”