Dream comes true with busy B&B

When Laurie and Mark Weinstein were first married, they loved going to B&Bs in Cape May, N.J., looking forward to a day when they might have one of their own. As avid antiquers, they dreamed of a big old house to display their growing collection of Victorian furniture, with room to add even more. They looked at properties over the years, but never bought any.

Then one day, Laurie noticed a “for sale” sign being put up at the York Street House Bed & Breakfast just three blocks from their house in Lambertville, N.J. She walked into the 1911 house and overheard a group of businessmen talking about adding drop ceilings to convert the historic mansion into an office building. “We have to save this house,” Laurie told herself.

Knowing it would be a lot of work and require a great deal of support and patience from their children, Laurie and Mark, a physician, held a family meeting. Oldest son Michael, now a UD sophomore majoring in criminal justice, was 13 years old at the time. Laurie recalls that he told her, “Mom, you’ve done so much for our family—if this is your dream, you should do it.”

“And that’s how we ended up with a B&B,” she says. Originally planning to live in the house themselves, they soon realized that their family of four kids, a dog and a cat would need their own place. They kept their nearby house and began the arduous process of clean-up and renovation, making 25 trips to the dump with debris, spending two weeks scraping, spackling and painting and, finally, getting a contractor to help.

“The house is so well built. It cost $65,000 to build back in 1909, so we didn’t have to go back and undo anything,” she explains. Built by George Massey as a 25th wedding anniversary present to his wife, the York Street House was constructed of Flemish Bond brick on a base of locally quarried Prallsville Mill stone. It featured copper downspouts, a Vermont slate tile roof, a combination of gas and electric light fixtures, a stained-glass window, fireplaces surrounded by art tiles, a wrought iron fence and carriage house. It served as a private home, church building and boarding house before becoming a B&B in 1983, when it was featured as a Designer Showcase House.

Since Victorian furniture was “hated” by the time the mansion was built, the Weinsteins began collecting Empire pieces instead. It all worked out nicely, Laurie says, because the number one complaint about Victorian style B&Bs is that they are too cluttered. “Besides, I hate to dust,” she says. The six guest rooms offer queen or king-size beds (of the four-poster or canopy variety), two chambers feature two-person Jacuzzis (others have antique claw foot bathtubs), and all offer fluffy towels and robes.

As innkeeper, Laurie’s favorite role is cooking for guests. For breakfast, she prepares fresh seasonal fruit in phyllo dough with a raspberry sauce, followed by Belgian pecan waffles with caramelized bananas. She also keeps a supply of her freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on hand at all times.

Socializing is another joy of life at a B&B, and Laurie enjoys chatting with guests or offering tips on area attractions, such as rafting down the Delaware River, art galleries, antiquing or shopping in New Hope, Pa., which is just a 10-minute walk away. People who frequent B&Bs tend to be very friendly, and Laurie enjoys watching the social interaction that naturally takes place. “The dining room is set with individual tables, but nothing warms my heart more than when at 10:30 a.m., there are still people in the dining room talking to each other,” she says.

The four Weinstein children—Michael, Steven, Andrew and Joshua—all pitch in to help their mom when needed. Michael was spending his summer break from UD scraping and painting windowsills and handling other maintenance needs.

Laurie is looking forward to the York Street House’s 100th anniversary in 2009. Displayed photos of the house when it was featured in the 1911 issue of House and Garden magazine show that the mansion looks almost exactly as it did a century ago. “The couch we have in the hallway is almost identical to the couch in the picture,” she remarks. “Maybe they’ll come back on our 100th anniversary and take the exact same photos.”
Visit the York Street House at [www.yorkstreethouse.com].

—Sharon Huss Roat