PORTLAND, Maine — About 20 years ago, after successful careers in the corporate world, Teri and Jeff Anderholm took a leap.
Having decided to pursue their dream of running an inn, they bought one in Bar Harbor called the Bass Cottage, a sprawling, four-story Victorian with 26 rooms and 10 guestrooms. The place was in rough shape—cracked walls, water-stained ceilings, Scotch-taped wallpaper—but it was theirs.
Months later, well into a renovation that was $900,000 over budget and nowhere close to completion, the Anderholms felt trapped. They couldn’t just hand over the keys and bail out. But they also couldn’t keep pouring money into their contractors’ bank accounts.
"This project was such a stupid idea," Jeff vented to Teri. "I wish we’d never bought it."
"You’re right," Teri replied. "And whose stupid idea was it?"
Not an auspicious beginning, but it makes for a good story, one that Teri tells in her new book, "Inn Mates – An Innkeeper’s Memoir."
She conveys what it’s really like to operate an inn—the joys and aggravations, the rewards and frustrations—and to deal, day in and day out, with guests both wonderful and wretched. Getting away from the inn to recharge was difficult. In one stretch Jeff worked 109 days in a row.
When the Anderholms sold the inn after nearly two decades, they left with mixed feelings. "We knew we wouldn’t always be part of the beautiful space we created," Teri writes. "We were only stewards of the inn. And someday, it would go on without us. And so it does."