Freemason B&B on the block

NORFOLK

Elaine Caplan sat in one of the chairs she had reupholstered more than a decade ago, in one of the sitting rooms she had designed, and looked at the wallpaper of robin's egg blue and cream that she had ordered from England.

Caplan and others were touring the Freemason Inn Bed & Breakfast on a recent Friday, one of the few opportunities to revisit the Victorian beauty before it, and all its contents, go up for auction Wednesday.

The York Street B&B closed after its owner, Robert Epstein, a popular Norfolk attorney, died last year.

Epstein bought the circa 1897 house in the late 1990s and heard about Caplan, her English roots and her interior design business in Portsmouth. He hired her to remake the interior.

"He was really a different man. He was stylish," Caplan said, looking about the room, "and he wanted this to be dignified."

Epstein's estate wants to keep it that way. That's why William Summs, who is handling the auction, said the house and its contents - including linen and tea imported from Europe - are a package deal. The current manager of the house is even willing to stay on, and the buyer can get a list of past, and often repeat, visitors.

"Someone could come in and convert it into a home or office," Summs said. "But we're hoping that they will see the true value is as a B&B."

Bill Goodson, who inherited the house from his uncle in the 1990s, said Epstein approached him about buying it shortly after he took ownership. The attorney's law practice was in the adjacent building, and Goodson said he thought Epstein considered using the house to expand his business. Epstein then got the idea of the bed and breakfast.

Goodson never lived in the structure and sold it as it was for $129,000. Epstein spent about $400,000 and a few years renovating the house, from the first to third floors, and he opened it to guests in early 2003. The auction company says it's now worth $530,000.

Keith Kavanaugh, a former innkeeper, said he'd worked with Epstein to capture the English theme with a Norfolk feel, which both men loved.

The building's floors are original, Kavanaugh said, and they were refinished but kept rough to mimic the feel of the wood of the schooners that would have pulled into the harbor more than a century ago.

Kavanaugh and Epstein ordered teas from the motherland but offered five-course breakfasts, including Smithfield country ham, in honor of Virginia.

The four bedrooms were converted into suites, each with its own theme. There's the East India room with its claw-foot tub, the Tea Council suite and the Sir York, and the Wishing Oak bridal suite, which has a whirlpool bath and fireplace in its bathroom.

The Wishing Oak's name was another nod to Norfolk, Kava-naugh said, taken from the poem about a tree that once stood near Granby Street. A custom developed that unmarried couples would stand underneath the tree and tell each other of their desire to wed, then walk two blocks in silence.

According to the poem, "Talisman of the Wishing Oak":

For a distance of two short blocks from the tree as proof that a proper mate he would be, since "Silence is golden" and the fairies said - "He who can't hold his tongue is not fit to wed."

Kavanaugh said the inn took time to become popular, but soon it was booking actors, world-class musicians, Supreme Court justices, NATO officials and debutantes.

Kavanaugh left the B&B around 2005 but never forgot the good times. He stopped by the fireplace in the middle sitting room, the one with the mantel stacked with books filled with comments and promises to return from visitors around the country.

Kavanaugh said he and Epstein would sit by the fireplace, and the older lawyer would talk for hours and give him advice.

"That's probably what I miss the most," he said, "those fireside chats. I miss those days. They were so much fun."

Denise Watson Batts, (757) 446-2504, denise.batts@pilotonline.com