Sandra CH Smith -- A writer and actor, Sandra arrived in Eureka Springs in 1993 after spending seven years sailing alone from San Francisco to 1837 miles off the Galapagos in her Ericson 35 sailboat. She has brought back not only art treasures from Mexico and Central America which adorn the Inn, but also a sense of serene timelessness which sets the mood at Cliff Cottage Inn.

No newcomer to Bed & Breakfasts, Sandra opened Philadelphia's very first B&B in 1978 when she was a starving poet reciting her verses to jazz on a weekly radio show and existing on a steady diet of raisins and peanuts!

An accomplished chef, Sandra learned to cook on an 18th-Century woodburning stove in the south of France. Her cuisine also reflects the tastes of Scotland where she studied as a child, and manages to include a hint of the Tropical flavors she learned to love while living in Jamaica and traveling around the Caribbean. She has been a guest chef on a CBS-TV cooking show and her cookbook-memoir, "A Cook's Tour of Epicuria - One Woman's Adventures" has become a very popular souvenir for guests to take home as a memento of their visit.

Sandra began her love affair with the Ozarks and specifically, Eureka Springs, from the moment she arrived....she had sold her boat in Puerto Vallarta and become a landlubber after a near fatal accident at sea off Guatemala. While trying to save her boat from sinking after a temporary crewmember fell asleep at the helm and broke the boom off, she got the "message" to "Go to Arkansas!". While the young crewman lay huddled on the floor, paralyzed by fear, it took Sandra over 4 hours to right the boat and she has since learned this was something of a miracle. The designer of her Ericson 35, Bruce King, lost his boat and entire crew in a similar accident. While sitting in a cafe in Puerto Rico trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, Sandra met some fellows from Springfield, MO and she told them she was going to Arkansas in a few days and was that anywhere near Missouri (she had no clue where Arkansas was located!) They said it was one State away and suggested she go to Eureka Springs...."there are people like you up there!" (She didn't know if this was an insult or a compliment, but decided to make her way to Eureka Springs and she has been here ever since!)

Sandra's favorite pastime (besides cooking) is sharing her enthusiasm for the surroundings with her guests. On cool summer evenings or brisk winter nights, she may be inspired to share her sea stories with guests. (While sailing alone, she created the "As the Anchor Drags Radio Show", reading poetry and stories on the air to hundreds of Pacific boaters and landlubbers with VHF radios and managed to read on her radio program the entire book, "Treasure Island", while in a hurricane hole in the Sea of Cortez.)