Cedarbrook Inn
- Project
- Sample website
- Audience
- Boutique inn · Phoenicia, NY
- Scope
- 5 pages · design and build
The brief
Who it’s for. What it needs to do.
A stay begins with the feeling of being there.
The brief for this small Catskills inn sets the mood first and keeps room browsing simple. A guest should be able to picture the place, look over the rooms and find out how to ask about a stay, all at the site’s slow, quiet pace.
This is a fictional business, and everything it says about itself was written for this sample.
Design decisions
A closer look at the choices behind the pages.
Give the rooms a proper introduction
A spacious, editorial homepage leads to the rooms page, set in a serif with outlined buttons to keep the tone quiet. Rooms has its own place in the navigation, so “Book a room” on the homepage opens the rooms instead of a bare form.
Let the setting do some of the explaining
The gallery arranges its photos in a mosaic, which shows far more of the inn and its surroundings than one hero image can. By the time a guest reaches the contact page, they should already be able to picture the stay.
The visitor’s path
From the first question to the next step.
Arrive at the inn ↗
The first words are “Slow down in the Catskills.” Then a single button leads to the rooms.
Find your room ↗
The Hemlock, the Birch, the Spruce and the Cedar Suite each get a description of their own.
Look around the inn ↗
The gallery, “Moments at Cedarbrook,” shows the inn and the mountain around it.
Ask about a stay ↗
Questions the rooms page didn’t answer can go through the form or by phone.
Delivered work
What’s here, and what it demonstrates.
Rooms at the center
Five pages, all at the same slow pace, with the rooms one click from the homepage.
Settling on a room
Rooms come early and the contact form waits until later, so a guest can settle on a room first.
Explore the website
Take a closer look at the finished pages.
The form is part of the sample and doesn’t send.
Let’s make it yours.
Tell us about your business and the people you serve. We’ll plan the pages around what your website needs to do.