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EASTHAM – Lawrence Shapiro, a child psychologist and author of numerous self-help and psychology books, used to haunt inns and bed and breakfasts to get away to do his writing.
Then, three years ago, he became the author of his own bed and breakfast, a yellow Victorian with a wraparound porch on Route 6 in Eastham.
But it’s not just any inn. The Inn at the Oaks offers special rates for writers in the off-season while operating as a traditional inn in the summer.
And the discount goes to anyone “who wants to write, and wants to come to the inn to write,” Shapiro said.
“There is certainly no need to be a published writer,” he added.
The 13-room inn has a suite called the Henry Beston room, named for the author of “The Outermost House,” published in 1928. The book chronicles Beston’s year living in a 20-foot-by-16-foot house, “the Fo’castle,” built on the Eastham shoreline in 1925.
Beston’s Fo’castle washed away during the Blizzard of ’78. But in 1925, you could see the shack from the window of the Henry Beston suite, Shapiro said. There is a rustic writing table in the suite’s second room, a king-size bed, and calming sea-inspired green walls.
Shapiro replaced the former owner’s ornate Victorian decor with simpler furnishings. He has antique typewriters and writing desks as well as clawfoot tubs galore.
Beston apparently stayed in the inn in the 1920s when the greenhead flies on the beach became too much for him, he said.
Shapiro has documented the Cape’s many connections with writers over the years with his charming Cape Cod Literary Map, which is for sale at the inn’s gift shop.
It lists nearly 50 authors, including Horatio Alger Jr. who was the reverend of a Unitarian church in Brewster. He left the church in 1866 after being accused of misconduct with two teenage boys, according to the map.
The map mentions deceased authors Mary McCarthy (Wellfleet), Susan Glaspell (Provincetown), Jack Kerouac (Hyannis) and Katharine Lee Bates (Falmouth), to name a few. And it includes several current writers, such as National Book Award winners Mark Doty (Provincetown) and Nathaniel Philbrick (Nantucket), as well as Lisa Genova (Chatham), whose novels frequent the New York Times Bestseller’s list.
“Of all the businesses I’ve had, the inn is the most fun,” Shapiro said, sitting in the 1870 inn’s Victorian parlor room, an antique typewriter on a nearby table.
Being a child psychologist has a lot of good points, but it’s not exactly fun, Shapiro said. His books, such as “Stopping the Pain: for Teens who Cut and Self-Injure” aren’t exactly light.
But at the inn, “everyone is happy,” Shapiro said.
While it operates as a traditional inn during summer, the same suites that go for $300 a night are offered for $500 or $600 for the week to writers during the winter, he said.
The inn also provides a way to bond with other authors. Shapiro, who lives part-time at the inn, still writes two or three hours every morning.
So far some fairly well-published names have utilized the inn, including young-adult novelist Mary Hogan and Rolling Stone journalist Mark Binelli.
Binelli stayed a few times while finishing his book, “Detroit City Is the Place To Be.”
“It was a funny place to write about gritty urban decay,” Binelli said during a phone interview from his New York City home.
“But at some point being too close to your subject is a distraction because you want to keep reporting,” Binelli said. “The inn was very comfortable, soothing and calm.”
Shapiro welcomes anyone with a yen for the pen, even those who may never be published.
One engineer has stayed at the inn several times to work on his poetry, he added.
“I just love people who want to write,” Shapiro said.
(For the record, Shapiro’s favorite author is Malcolm Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point,” and “Blink.”)
A part-time resident of Norwalk, Conn., Shapiro searched all over the country for the best place to buy an inn for writers.
He looked at Key West, Fla., Savannah, Ga., and New Orleans. But then he found the Inn at the Oaks, a former captain’s home turned farmhouse turned inn in the 1920s. It operated for most of the 20th century as the Overlook Inn, he said. The name was changed to the Inn at the Oaks by previous owners eight or nine years ago, he said.
So far the winters are still slow with only a few writers each month, he said.
“But I’m just thrilled with even one person,” Shapiro said. “It’s just a great, great thing to have a writer here.”