Emporia’s only currently operational bed and breakfast is for sale.
Sheri McGuire, owner of the White Rose Inn, has placed the two-home property at 901 Merchant St. on the market. McGuire and her family plan to move to Boise, Idaho, next year after her daughter graduates from Emporia High School. McGuire’s parents live in Boise.
“A family starts at one place, everybody goes and does their own things, but eventually as you get older, everybody goes home,” she said. “And it’s time for me to go home and be with my parents and my family ... Emporia’s been great for us. It’s been wonderful.”
McGuire said the inn was still profitable and will be opened as normal until her family moves.
The property is listed through Ek Real Estate. McGuire said she hoped to find a buyer who would continue using it as a bed and breakfast because of its importance to the city.
“It’s an important part of downtown,” she said, “and we don’t want to have that closed. Because a lot of businesses depend on it. Emporia State University has been wonderful to us. The Chamber of Commerce, the Main Street association, all the local businesses (have) referred customers to us. ... That’d be a real loss if somebody bought it and didn’t continue on with the bed-and-breakfast theme.”
The McGuires moved to Emporia from the Long Beach, Calif., area three years ago. McGuire said she’s proud of the improvements that were made to the more than century-old house since she took ownership, including leveling, installing a waterproof barrier in the basement, renovating and adding a new sprinkler system and air conditioning units. Though she’d like the next owner to use the inn as a bed and breakfast, McGuire said the property has a number of potential uses.
“It could be turned into little apartment rentals,” she said. “(They) could do beds with no breakfast. It’s really versatile. Each unit is metered separately, so it could be little rentals for students. It could be turned back into a one-family house.”
The inn contains three single rooms on the lower floor, a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor and two bedrooms in its bungalow.
Jeff Williams of Ek Real Estate said the property, which he called “absolutely gorgeous,” is being marketed as a bed and breakfast, but said that it might sell more quickly if it were broken up into homes or apartments.
“And of course, we can’t stop that from happening, but we’re not actually targeting that to happen,” Williams said. “We’re really trying to keep it a bed and breakfast for the community, and there is a need for it.”
Comments
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
Posted by create (anonymous) on May 10, 2008 at 7:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I have had out-of-town guests who stayed there and it is truly a gorgeous place. I have often admired the way the grounds outdoors are kept too. I myself live in an old Victorian built in 1892 and while these old ladies have a lot of character, they do make demands for maintenance.
I hope whoever buys this lovely place keeps it as a bed & breakfast because turning it into rentals is a sure invitation to problems with deterioration. My own experience with renting out the upstairs portion of my home is a good case in point when I recently had to evict the tenant for not paying rent and found a costly disaster when that person left.
Post a comment
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. Our goal with this feature is to encourage thoughtful discussions about the news stories. Using the comment feature to make random attacks on people is not acceptable. Emporiagazette.com neither endorses nor guarantees the accuracy of any user contribution. Responsibility for what is posted or contributed to this site is the sole responsibility of each user. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
(Requires free registration.)