Summer 2026

In Good Company at Welcome Hill Studios

At Welcome Hill, we see scenes of artists and their animal companions often. We’ve always believed that a retreat is an invitation to make space: to think, wander, rest, experiment, and begin again. For many of our guests, that space includes a dog or cat.

Ann Stokes, artist and creator of Welcome Hill, understood the particular comfort of that company. During much of her life, dogs and cats were her friends and creative partners. When Ann passed in 2016, her ashes were laid to rest beside her dog, Nanette, and later, her beloved cat, Jack. The spirit of companionship she enjoyed remains woven into Welcome Hill today in many ways.

For some women experiencing domestic abuse, the relationship between two-leggeds and four-leggeds can have unexpected significance. Research has documented that abusive partners sometimes threaten, harm, or neglect animals as a means of controlling and intimidating their partners. For some women, fear for an animal’s safety becomes a reason to delay leaving an abusive relationship. Studies have found that significant numbers of survivors have stayed longer, delayed seeking shelter, or struggled with safety planning because they could not bear to leave a beloved animal behind.

The choice can be devastating: leave and risk abandoning the animal who has offered comfort and protection, or stay in a dangerous situation because there is nowhere safe for both of you to go.

At Welcome Hill, bringing an animal companion means a woman does not have to divide her life into pieces when she arrives here. In Ann Stokes’ vision, Welcome Hill is a refuge for women, including those who need a safe place to rest their heads. A woman can bring anything she needs, she can explore the woods with a dog who has walked beside her through everything. She can sit quietly with a cat at the end of a long day. There is no need to be alone on the Hill, unless that’s exactly what you want.

For creative work, too, animal companions can bring unexpected gifts. Creative life can be wonderfully solitary, but there is a difference between choosing quiet and having no one beside you. Dogs, cats, and other pet friends can bring us back to the world beyond our work. Take a break from that chapter and walk the dog. Pet the cat while he interrupts, laying on the keyboard. Sometimes, we all need to look up from the page or canvas.

This summer, Welcome Hill has been full of women resting, wandering, writing, painting, thinking and, in many cases, doing so with their animal companions nearby.

We’re grateful for all the company you bring.

Resident Spotlight

Julia Story is a poet and author of four collections, most recently Spinster for Hire (The Word Works). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares, and has been awarded a Pushcart Prize.

Since 2022, Julia and her dachshund, Edith, have been regulars on Welcome Hill. This summer, Edith passed away at nearly sixteen. Here, Julia writes about her first visit back without her sweet companion at her side.

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“We’re here!”

Each of my visits to the Guest House at Welcome Hill began with these words as I awakened my elderly Dachshund Edith, who slept curled on her blanket on the passenger seat next to me. She usually fell asleep as soon as we began the drive out of Boston, and slept soundly even as my car spiraled up the hill through the trees to our magical New Hampshire home away from home.

Upon arrival and after a frantic fifteen minute sniffing session as she re-acclimated to the studio, she would settle into one of her favorite spots inside or head outside to bask in the sun on the balcony, asleep again in minutes as I puttered and prepared for a week spent fully inside my imagination.

Over the last few years, Edith and I have visited the Guest House in all seasons: in peaceful deep green summer and enveloping blizzards in winter (once we both ate by candlelight when we lost power in a snow storm!). As I’m sure many artists have experienced at all of the studios, there is a powerful energy that not only compels me to create (in my case, write poetry), but that brings me a sense of real peace and purpose within their walls. I have loved watching Edith, a rescue dog who had anxiety and health problems that often made city life tough for her, melt and relax as we both gave ourselves to this sacred space.

After a life full of adventure and naps, my Edith passed away on July 3, 2026 at nearly 16 years old. At home in Boston I’m still learning how to do daily life without my little sidekick. I still think I hear her nails clicking around and her long ears flapping with one of her huge head shakes. In the course of a day while working or writing I got up to kiss her head no less than 25 times a day.

In early August I wondered if I could go through with my planned trip to Welcome Hill with no Edith. She was so tightly woven into all of my memories about being there, I simply could not picture being there without her. I finally decided that I would regret it if I didn’t at least try. I packed with no little snoop getting into the suitcases or coolers, no wagging tail while she waited to be lifted into the car. When I pulled up to the Guest House on that August afternoon with my car full of books and papers, my heart sank as I looked at my backpack on the seat next to me instead of her little sleeping body. The first few hours there were hard as I took in all of her favorite sleeping nooks, the place where I put her food bowl, her beloved balcony and the miles of woods she loved to run through. Grief enveloped me as I felt the emptiness without her. Gradually though, I opened a book, a notebook, my computer. I disappeared as I always do into my imagination: writing, reading, revising, thinking, missing her but letting poetry heal me as it tends to do.

Later that afternoon I felt another pang as I remembered the daily walks Edith and I would take on the trails beyond the house, hiking in all seasons and in all weather. I didn’t want to go without her. I thought I had made up my mind to forgo the wooded trails on this visit, but then I found myself walking into the clearing behind the house anyway, absorbing the beautiful sculpture garden and inviting trees. Beautiful but lonely. At the trailhead I paused and thought, “I can’t do this without you.” And then as if she were right there next to me, I felt her message: “I’m here.” And then as if she were with me, her little white body at my ankles, anxious to run and sniff, we took off together into the trees: a lone human and the spirit of a little dog who I think will always be a part of Welcome Hill.