Where Artists Sleep, Create, and Transform: The FreshGrass Annex at The Porches Inn

How a creative retreat in the Berkshires used transformable furniture to maximize every square foot — and unlock a new kind of hospitality experience.

A Retreat Built for the Creative Mind

Nestled in North Adams, Massachusetts, directly across the street from MASS MoCA, one of the largest contemporary art museums in the United States, The Porches Inn has been a destination for culturally curious travelers for 25 years. The inn began as a row of lovingly restored historic row houses and, over time, became a gathering place for artists, musicians, and makers drawn to the Berkshires' remarkable creative ecosystem. When it came time to expand with the FreshGrass Annex, multifunctional furniture became essential. The rooms needed to adapt to artists' varied needs, functioning as workspace by day and restful retreat by night.

Now, with its opening, The Porches has taken that mission further than ever.

The Annex is a purpose-built creative retreat: 10 minimalist luxury guest rooms designed for extended stays, deep focus, and genuine restoration. Featuring Douglas fir cabinetry, soaring ceilings, skylights, and wide-plank wood floors, each room is intentionally free of televisions and in-room phones. Guests have access to co-working spaces, a shared deck with mountain views of the Berkshire hillside, and a full campus of creative programming, all anchored by the FreshGrass Institute (FGI), which hosts artist residencies, master workshops, recording sessions, and live performances.

It's an environment designed to inspire. And the furniture had to match that ambition.

Small Rooms, Big Purpose: Maximizing Space for Luxury Hotel Rooms

When the architects began designing the Annex guest rooms, they faced a familiar constraint: limited square footage in a building where every inch needed to earn its place. But rather than accept a standard hotel room layout of a bed that takes up the room, the team saw an opportunity.

Artists and musicians staying at the Annex weren't just sleeping there. They were working, collaborating, rehearsing, and living in these rooms for days at a time. A residency guest might arrive on Sunday and stay through Saturday, moving between the recording studio, the soundproofed practice rooms, the performance space in Studio 9, and their own room. The space needed to flex with them.

"The beds can go up, the musician can use that space to sit, to work, to make it feel like a larger space during the day or night. They're working all the time."

Larry Smallwood, who spearheaded the project, put it simply: "Comparable cost-wise, but two rooms in one footprint. Economies there, for sure."

The solution: make the room transformable. By incorporating Resource Furniture wall beds into every guest room, the Annex team could offer a full living and working environment in a compact footprint without sacrificing the luxury feel that Porches guests expect.

Transforming and Motorized Solutions Used at The Porches Inn

Nine of the ten Annex rooms feature the Oslo, a wall bed with integrated sofa. It’s a clean-lined, space-optimizing system that integrates a full-size Murphy bed with a sofa unit. When the bed is raised, the room opens up completely; a comfortable couch takes its place, ready for rehearsing, brainstorming, or simply unwinding. When it's time to sleep, a quality mattress descends with ease.

The tenth room, an ADA-accessible unit, features the Penelope Electric Wall Bed, a motorized solution. With the touch of a button, the bed glides down silently and effortlessly. During a recent photo shoot at the Annex, the reaction from everyone who experienced it was immediate: "This is magic!"

The architects' vision for how the two products would work was clear from the start. "We have a well-made, spacious lounge with workspace for the day: entertaining, collaborating, playing music, meeting, working, and reading. And that room is paired with a proper, comfortable evening experience with modern versions of the Porches' famous creature comforts: lovely linens, wood floors with throw rugs, and carefully curated amenities."

The aesthetic of the Oslo and Penelope wall beds aligned naturally with the Annex's Shaker-meets-Berkshire-grit design language. The furniture didn't need to disappear into the room; it became part of the story the room was telling. Custom sofa upholstery in expressive colors adds a pop of personality, reinforcing the artistic spirit of the space and giving each room a unique character. The transforming furniture attracts longer-stay guests like artists in residency and remote workers who need workspace by day and comfortable sleeping quarters by night, a guest profile that generates significantly higher revenue per room than traditional overnight travelers.

Onboarding the Experience: Turning the Unfamiliar into a Feature

For any hotel introducing transforming furniture for the first time, guest education is everything. The Porches Inn team thought carefully about how to introduce the concept at every touchpoint, before and during the stay.

Guests encounter the wall bed concept before they even arrive, through booking materials and a pre-stay communication that sets expectations and builds anticipation. On arrival, the front desk walks each guest through the basics, making it clear this isn't a typical hotel setup; it's a deliberate, exciting design choice. And in each room, a printed card with a QR code links directly to the manufacturer's video, so guests can see the system in action on their own time.

Upon check-in, beds are in the raised position by default so the first impression of the room is generous, open, and bright. The transformation is the reveal.

"You don't really see a hotel room that has this kind of feature. It's unique. That's part of the whole philosophy behind the building."

Early Days, Promising Signs

The FreshGrass Annex opened in early 2026, and the first artist residency, a full band, checked in almost immediately. The feedback was enthusiastic. No furniture-related concerns. Just artists settling into a space that felt like it had been designed with them in mind.

The Porches team is still in the early stages of learning what their guests truly need for extended creative stays. A common space, equipped with a refrigerator and coffee maker near the recording studio, has already emerged as a popular amenity, but the foundational design decisions are proving their worth. Rooms that could have felt cramped instead feel like creative studios. Beds that could have dominated the space instead disappear when not needed.

And for future properties? Kelly and the Porches team are open to it. With a new location coming to Boston's Leather District, and the growing demand for thoughtful boutique hospitality experiences, the conversation about transformable furniture is now one they know how to have.

 What Developers Can Take Away

The FreshGrass Annex is a compelling case study for any developer or hospitality operator thinking about how to extract more value from constrained square footage. A few principles stand out:  Don't reduce units, but do make them more versatile. Rather than cutting room count to accommodate space constraints, the Annex team made smaller rooms work harder. The result is 10 bookable keys where fewer might have existed.  Differentiation is a revenue strategy. A room with a wall bed isn't just a room with a bed, it's a room with a story. That story commands attention in a crowded market.  Extended stays reward transformable design. It allows guests staying multiple nights, residency artists, creative retreat attendees, and workshop participants to live in their space. Furniture that adapts to how they actually use the room creates a meaningfully better experience.  Aesthetic alignment matters. The Oslo and Penelope collections weren't chosen despite the space; they were chosen because they belonged in it. When transformable furniture feels native to a design, it elevates the entire property. 

Ready to Think Differently About Your Next Project?

Resource Furniture works with developers, contractors, and hospitality operators at every stage, from early concept through specification and installation. Whether you're designing artist residencies, boutique hotels, micro-unit apartments, or co-living spaces, our team can help you identify the right products for your footprint and your vision.