Southern Comforts

Cradled by mountain lakes, with a 5,000-acre national park and 47 hot springs, an unexpectedly fine documentary film festival and a smattering of global cuisine, this is a Norman Rockwell town of 40,000 with a streak of Jackson Pollock, a sort of Ma Kettle-meets-Billy Bob Thornton kind of place. It has drawn Hollywood moguls, generals, gangsters and presidents to soak in what is said to be some of the purest mineral water outside Baden-Baden, Germany.

For reasons that are less obvious, this historic town in Arkansas' Ouachita (pronounced WA-she-tah) Mountain foothills also may be a tonic for the times, an idyllic getaway for urbanites wearied by a post-Sept. 11 world. Here you can take the baths, bet on the ponies, scuba dive the lakes, catch a new presidential library exhibit and browse the mom-and-pop shops. By night you can sample French-Japanese fusion cuisine that rivals some of the best I've had and sip Godiva chocolate martinis--all without the pressure, as one restaurateur noted, to be constantly hip.

In early March I drove here to partake of America's original Spa City, where explorer Hernando DeSoto is said to have been the first European to take a sip. I wanted to catch the races at Oaklawn Park racetrack, where thoroughbreds run January through mid-April and the Arkansas Derby on April 13 provides a glimpse of Kentucky Derby hopefuls. I would meet my parents, who live a few hours away, stay at the Arlington Resort Hotel and check out the growing buzz about this undiscovered slice of bohemia.

I followed scenic Arkansas 7 into town until it segued into Central Avenue. A narrow artery that snakes through lichen-and-ivy-covered bluffs with trickling springs, Central hugs the west side of Hot Springs National Park, the oldest park in the country. Central is the main drag, with striking turn-of-the-century structures; among them are seven early 20th century bathhouses, including the Buckstaff, which provides old-style treatments, and the splendidly restored Fordyce, now a visitors center and fascinating four-floor museum.

Central Avenue also holds a bizarre collection of novelty shops and "museums": an aquarium, a wax museum, a fun shop, a reptile house. But the kitsch is offset by some fairly progressive art galleries, antiques shops and cool vintage stores.

Central is where you'll find the Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa, a 1924 grande dame of a place with wraparound verandas, double towers and a soaring lobby ballroom flanked with surreal tropical murals and giant footed candelabra. Al Capone kept a fourth-floor suite when frequenting the town's casinos, and Bill Clinton, who grew up in Hot Springs, attended his senior prom in the ballroom.

My digs were on the seventh floor, down from the heated swimming pool, which is terraced into the hillside and accompanied by a tree-canopied hot tub farther up. The room had spindle-post headboards, framed botanicals, cushy armchairs and a round wood table, chintz curtains and long windows overlooking the park and its spring-fed falls. The 5-foot-long porcelain bathtub has thermal waters from the same springs as the hotel's old-school in-house spa.

By 7 p.m. I was out the door, and by 7:10 I was seated five blocks away at Sink's Kitchen, a funky little cafe and gallery. Paintings by owner-musician-chef-artist Bryan Sink adorn the walls, and a jazz combo, with Sink on percussion, sizzled. (Sink's is moving this month to a spacious upstairs loft across the street, with separate rooms for gallery, music, dining and cocktails.) Customers use the honor system when they're ready to pay, depositing cash or personal checks (really) in a basket.

For starters I had red-bean garlic hummus ($1), and for an entree, the lobster ravioli ($11) in an artichoke and red bell pepper lemon-butter sauce, tangy enough to balance the lobster-and-cream filling.

During dinner I met Jonny Frye and Pam Crawford, a couple who relocated from Austin, Texas, and now work at Sink's. I asked why they chose this town. Frye says he perused the Hot Springs phone book and "didn't see a ... Starbucks."

"I thought, 'This is mom-and-pop central. This is what we're looking for.'"

They invited me for a nightcap at the cavernous basement-level Brau Haus, a onetime brothel circa 1889, with dining niches, live music and a reportedly mean jaeger schnitzel, made from a family recipe. We sipped peach schnapps and sampled the German beer (three on tap and 50 bottled), and after our goodnights I walked back to the Arlington, accompanied by the sounds of crickets and the trickling of springs.