About Us

About Starlight Llama

Starlight Llama Bed and Breakfast is Massachusetts’ FIRST solar-powered, off-the-grid, bed and breakfast. Learn More About Us! Starlight Llama is the only local hotel, inn or B&B where you can get a cup of coffee, have breakfast with organic ingredients straight from the garden, watch a llama grazing outside your window, see a donkey take a dust bath, and charge your cell phone with solar power, all before 10 a.m.!  During your stay, learn more about llamas or how the solar power works.  Utilize our fantastic location as a base camp for enjoying Northampton or Berkshire sites. Park your bikes, take off your canoe, or hang up your beach towels before you head into town to shop, enjoy an ethnic restaurant, or see a performance or exhibition. With 120 acres, we have room.

 We, your hosts John and Dee, opened Starlight Llama in 2008Llamas Grazing on Farm and Property to showcase the ease of using solar power, provide you with a 'green' getaway, and share our conservation-protected land, animals and farm. Our bed and breakfast is a wonderful alternative to a hotel, a one-size-fits-all inn, or the crowded kid's room in someone's home.  We offer a unique option: Space and Access to the outdoors! Enjoy a fantastic fresh breakfast - we can easily accommodate gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian diets! We are here to provide wonderful suggestions for what to do in the area, where to eat and park, and our clear, hand drawn directions are sure to get there. Rest assured that during the Pandemic and whatever era we are in now, we are working to make sure that you stay healthy and safe by following cleaning protocols, proper distancing, offering our Picnic Breakfast, and just using common sense.

There is much to do at Starlight Llama besides get a good night's sleep! Hike, bike, snowshoe, walk our trails, and if you'd like, weed a garden, bring in the hay, or help John clear the trails up to his reproduction of Henry David Thoreau's cabin. A visit to our bed and breakfast allows you access to 120 acres of our conservation restricted property, land that has been in our family for 6 generations. Our land abuts the Mineral Hills Conservation area, so bring your water bottle and hiking shoes, or bathing suit, we are a short bike ride to a public swimming area.

Your stay at Starlight Llama is your chance to relax, so if you want a slower pace, feel free to sit on the deck with a cup of coffee and a book, relax and watch the llamas graze, or wait for the peacocks to wander over for a snack.

Our Land

Our land was part of a 700 acre dairy farm that has been in John's family for six generations. While John was conducting research for one of his books about his family's land and the historic Roberts Meadow area, he learned that our property has been in the hands of only two European families, and owned by his family for nearly 200 years. To protect this land from development, we have placed over 120 acres in a Conservation Restriction, ensuring that meadow and woodland creatures will always have a place to call home.

Coming up the driveway you might see rabbits scurrying back to the hedgerow, indigo buntings, bluebirds, coopers hawk, deer, and at noon listen and look for the resident broad hawk that conducts a lunchtime flyover of the meadow. You may see Bald Eagles, Red-Tailed Hawks, Turkey Vultures, and a special treat is seeing a Great Blue Heron flying over from the nearby reservoir.

While walking our trails, we invite you to look for signs of deer, bear, fox and bobcat. Don't worry; you won't see the animals themselves and the woods are very safe. The brook, formerly a reservoir across the road, often hosts otters, beavers, Merganser and other ducks, kingfishers and Great Blue Heron. If you see what you first think is an egret, it is more likely a young Heron; they are white until they reach adulthood.

At night listen for the owls or packs of coyote that roam the ridges of the hills. Also listen for the deep bass sound of our emus. They sound like an African drum, but we assure you, it is incredibly peaceful.

This is a working llama and hay farm. We are often asked, “Why llamas?” and can only say that we just love them. They are easy keepers, quiet, beautiful, and make us happy. The original herd were fun to take for walks, and while we shear them, we are always saving their wool to make something special. Depending upon the time of the year, you may witness -or help!- us bring in the hay, pick raspberries, or weed the gardens. For safety, guests are not allowed to open gates, or enter the pastures or pens with the animals without us present.