Guest house

A guest house (also guesthouse) is a kind of lodging. In some parts of the world a guest house is similar to a hostel, bed and breakfast, or inn where in other parts of the world (such as for example the Caribbean), guest houses are a type of inexpensive hotel-like lodging. In still others, it is a private home which has been converted for the exclusive use of guest accommodation. The owner usually lives in an entirely separate area within the property and the guest house may serve as a form of lodging business. This type of accommodation presents some major benefits such as:

History

In 374 AD, St. Basil the Great established a guest house in Caesarea.

Overview

In some areas of the world, guest houses are the only kind of accommodation available for visitors who have no local relatives to stay with. Among the features which distinguish a guest house from a hotel, or inn is the lack of a full-time staff.

Soho

Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and is part of London's West End. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation as a base for the sex industry in addition to its night life and its location for the headquarters of leading film companies. Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable gentrification. It is now predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues.

Soho is a small, multicultural area of central London; a home to industry, commerce, culture and entertainment, as well as a residential area for both rich and poor. It has clubs, including the former Chinawhite nightclub; public houses; bars; restaurants; a few sex shops scattered amongst them; and late-night coffee shops that give the streets an "open-all-night" feel at the weekends. Record shops cluster in the area around Berwick Street, with shops such as Blackmarket Records and Vinyl Junkies.

Guest House

Guest House is a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to the treatment of Catholic priests, deacons, brothers, seminarians (and - since 1994 - women religious) who suffer from alcoholism, other chemical dependencies and other addictions involving food and gambling. Opened in 1956 in Lake Orion, Michigan, Guest House is the oldest, continuously operating treatment center of its kind anywhere.

Guest House has 68 full-time and 61 part-time employees and an annual budget in excess of $7 million. Guest House operates two licensed and Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Facilities (CARF) accredited treatment centers. The one in Rochester, Minnesota is for priests and male religious and the other, in Lake Orion, Michigan, is for women religious.

History

Guest House was founded by Austin Ripley who was a nationally renowned mystery fiction writer and author of Minute Mysteries, a popular newspaper column featuring solve-it-yourself crime cases, which was syndicated in more than 170 U.S. newspapers.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai (/ˈtʃjɑːŋˈmaɪ/, from Thai: เชียงใหม่  [tɕʰiəŋ màj], Lanna:ᨩ᩠ᨿᨦᩉ᩠ᨾᩲ᩵ [t͡ɕīaŋ.màj]) sometimes written as "Chiengmai" or "Chiangmai", is the largest and most culturally significant city in Northern Thailand. It is the capital of Chiang Mai Province and was a former capital of the Kingdom of Lan Na (1296–1768), which became a tributary state of the Kingdom of Chiang Mai from 1774 to 1939. It is 700 km (435 mi) north of Bangkok and is situated amongst the highest mountains in the country. The city sits astride the Ping River, a major tributary of the Chao Phraya River.

Chiang Mai means "new city" and was so named because it became the new capital of the Lan Na kingdom when it was founded in 1296, succeeding Chiang Rai, the former capital founded in 1262.

Chiang Mai gained prominence in the political sphere in May 2006, when the Chiang Mai Initiative was concluded between the ASEAN nations and the "+3" countries (China, Japan, and South Korea). Chiang Mai was one of three Thai cities contending for Thailand's bid to host the World Expo 2020 (the others were Chonburi and Ayutthaya). Ayutthaya, however, was the city ultimately chosen by the Thai Parliament to register for the international competition.

Soho House

Soho House is an 18th-century house in Handsworth, Birmingham, England. It was the home of entrepreneur Matthew Boulton from 1766 until his death in 1809, and a regular meeting-place of the Lunar Society of Birmingham.

It is now a museum, run by Birmingham Museums Trust, celebrating Boulton's life, his partnership with James Watt, his membership of the Lunar Society and his contribution to the Midlands Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

History

Matthew Boulton, one of the 18th century's greatest entrepreneurs, acquired the lease of the five-year-old Soho Mill in 1761 and developed it into Soho Manufactory. He expanded the cottage next to it into Soho House, changing it several times. It is faced with sheets of painted slate to give the appearance of large stone blocks. Boulton moved into Soho House when the Manufactory was completed. The Soho Manufactory was demolished in 1863.

In 1766 Boulton became one of the founders of the Lunar Society. In 1789, Boulton commissioned Samuel Wyatt to extend the buildings and fully revamp it and the gardens. Work on extending the building was completed in 1796 following the submission of designs by James Wyatt, Samuel's brother, for the additions of a main entrance front. Wyatt was also responsible for the large dining room, the regular venue for meetings of the Lunar Society. It is a Grade II* listed building.