The Morris Harvey House Bed & Breakfast

By now you all know how shamelessly I promote West Virginia, and rightly so. After all, it's scenic beauty is nearly unsurpassed as evidenced by the picture of the New River Gorge Bridge, at the top of this blog.


I've also had inquiry into where is the best places to stay in the area. Fortunately, in recent years, there have been several hotels built in the area. But, if you really want to get the true flavor of a quaint, small town like Fayetteville, WV, I think your needs would be better served by one of the B & B's there.

My pick is The Morris Harvey House Bed & Breakfast and there are many reasons why. But, I'll let you read for yourself all about the historic B & B taken directly from one of the Charleston Newspapers:



Innkeeper trades city life for return to roots
The house that Harvey built
By Julie Robinson
Staff writer

New River Gorge landowner Morris Harvey built a gracious home in Fayetteville that now serves as a welcome retreat for whitewater rafters and other guests.


FAYETTEVILLE - As midlife changes go, it was a pretty big one.
Bernie Kania grew up in Oak Hill, but had lived and worked in Virginia Beach, Va., for nearly 30 years, when he decided to chuck his engineering job to purchase and run a bed-and-breakfast in Fayetteville.


Owner Elizabeth Bush placed Morris Harvey House - the bed-and-breakfast she and her husband, George Soros - had painstakingly restored in 1993 on the market in 2007. Since Soros' death in 1998, she had accepted guests in gradually smaller numbers.


Recently divorced, Kania was considering a change of pace and remembered the house from his youth. When one of his two sons chose to attend Kania's alma mater, West Virginia University, instead of a Virginia school, Kania bought the Morris Harvey House and moved to Fayetteville.
At 52, he started his new life as an innkeeper.


"It's definitely a change of scenery and career," he said. "I just wanted to do something different. I've been involved with the public before, but this is the best public job there could be. When everyone comes here, they're on vacation. They're already happy."


The house was built in 1902 by Morris Harvey with the fortune he amassed selling coal and railroad rights on his steep property bordering the New River Gorge.


Harvey built the Queen Anne-style house in which he and his wife, Rosa, lived until he died in 1908. The Harveys had no children, and Rosa Harvey passed the house on to the Methodist Church, of which they were devoted members, when she died. It served as a parsonage until the 1950s, when various families owned and lived in it, until Bush and Soros converted it to a bed and breakfast.


The inn's immaculate 14 rooms contain seven vibrantly colored Italian marble-fronted fireplaces, each in a different color scheme. All the coal fireplaces are outfitted in ornate black iron surrounds and fittings. Two of them were converted to gas to give a warm glow to chilled guests.


Guests are frequently whitewater rafters who enjoy the comforts Kania provides after a strenuous day on the river. Kania replaced the sitting room's antique furniture with overstuffed soft leather couch and chair and added a television, the only one in the house.


Kania shows his guests around small-town Fayetteville and fills them in on the town's diverse restaurant options. He kept the house open this winter for the first time this year, and hosted a steady stream of guests.


"We're busier in the summer during rafting season," he said. "I joke with the rafters that if there's a woman in the group and they're trying to decide between us and a hotel, I get the business."


Morris Harvey House has five guest areas, including a third-floor sloped-ceiling loft with two bedrooms and one full bathroom. "People tell me that it reminds them of when they visited their grandparents' house when they were younger and played in their attic," Kania said.


The master bedroom, called Rosa's Suite, is tucked behind the first-floor sitting room. Its private bathroom includes an antique claw-foot bathtub and raised water closet toilet - charming and efficient. Beside the bed in the bedroom sits a small sink, an original fixture. The sink's water was supplied by an 800-gallon copper cistern on the second floor, which provided some of the earliest running water in town, Kania said. The cistern no longer functions, but it's visible through a window cut into an upstairs hallway wall.


The house was built without a kitchen on the premises. Hot and noisy cooking chores were conducted in the detached cook house, which Kania converted into his own residence. "I'm close enough if a guest needs anything, but far enough away to give them their privacy," he said.
Vinyl siding outside clearly differentiates the kitchen as an addition to the wood-clad house.
The distinction is required by the National Register of Historic Places, on which the house is listed.


Guests gather around the dining room's spacious oak table where Kania serves homemade breakfasts such as pineapple upside-down French toast or breakfast parfaits with yogurt, fresh fruit and granola. A typical breakfast also includes an egg dish, assorted breads or his homemade pineapple banana bread.


"I grew up in large Polish family. Breakfast was always a big deal," he said. "I'm just carrying on that tradition."


Kania runs the bed-and-breakfast with a little help from his family. He calls his 21-year-old son B.J. his "housekeeping manager." B.J., who has Down syndrome, is a whiz with linens and towels.



Although none of his three sisters lives in-state, they've each contributed their special talents toward the house. Sheila, his sister in Pennsylvania with an eye for antiques, purchases furnishings for the house. The house came with some furnishings, but Kania's changed and added others. The only original piece from Morris and Rosa Harvey's days is a bench in the front hall.
His sister Barbara and her husband, Tom, of Winchester, Va., help with house maintenance and gardening. Tom tends the formal gardens that can be viewed from the comfortable furniture on the inn's wraparound porch, as well as the rest of the grounds. A fleur-de-lis pattern from the stained-glass windows is repeated in the garden design.



Brenda, his sister in Florida, bakes breads and muffins, often with freshly picked mangoes, which she ships north for his guests' breakfasts.



Upstairs, the Library is the most modest bedroom and lacks a private bathroom. Kania named it in reference to the room's extensive bookshelves. The black and gold Harvey Room down the hall has a half bath and shares a full with the Library occupants.



The Grand Suite features a private bath. All the bedrooms are furnished with antiques, with occasional concessions to modern tastes. "Most antique beds are three-quarter-sized, which is too small for most people today. Our beds are queen-sized," Kania said.



A sign on the door advises visitors that if Kania doesn't answer, he'll be back shortly. He usually isn't too far away. The post office, bank, barber and library are all within a block of home. The small-town charm and convenience provide a welcome change from Virginia Beach, which grew too congested and crowded for Kania's taste.


"I think my friends in Virginia Beach probably think I'm crazy, but I have everything I need right here," he said. "I like the mountains and the green spaces. It was good to get away from the city and into a more country environment."




For more information or reservations, please visit: http://www.morrisharveyhouse.com/

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Before I was myself you made me, me

With love and patience, discipline and tears,

Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,
Allowing me to sail upon my sea,

Though well within the headlands of your fears.

Before I was myself you made me, me

With dreams enough of what I was to be

And hopes that would be sculpted by the years,

Then bit by bit stepped back to set me free,
Relinquishing your powers gradually

To let me shape myself among my peers.

Before I was myself you made me, me,

And being good and wise, you gracefully

As dancers when the last sweet cadence nears

Bit by bit stepped back to set me free.

For love inspires learning naturally:

The mind assents to what the heart reveres.

And so it was through love you made me, me

By slowly stepping back to set me free.

Copyright by Nicholas Gordon

A SHADOW OF A LIFE by Deborah Gibson Taylor

Prologue

1954

Just off Highway A1A, near St. Augustine, Florida, on a cold December day, a rusted, worn out ’48 Oldsmobile Straycat Convertible with its V-8 engine roared like a rocket into the red clay, earth-packed driveway in front of a shotgun shanty. The warped brakes screeched loudly as the shuttered and stopped. The sky, the color of pewter, looked ominous and foreboding with the dark clouds pregnant with the promise of rain.

The tired young woman threw open the heavy car door and stepped out. A cold wind coming off the Atlantic Ocean reminded her to pull her collar up to her earlobes for added warmth. The trim figure was neatly dressed in dark blue work overalls, with crisply starched creases, her name neatly embroidered in pink on the white background of the oval label, right under the Grumman Factory name.

Shivering, she reached beside her on the front seat and drew the large, wriggling, blue-eyed baby boy close to her heart, giving him another kiss and reassuring hug while sliding a blue hand-crocheted blanket over his black curls to protect him from the cold.

Once out of the car, the diminutive woman balanced the cherub-faced boy on her hip, readjusting the blanket each time the wind blew it off. Still clutching her precious bundle in her arms, knee bent, her small foot flat against the car door, she quickly slammed it shut.

With a steely look of determination on her face, and her last small burst of energy, she cautiously made her way up the wooden steps carefully avoiding all the rotted boards and stepped gingerly onto the weathered, dilapidated front porch.

In response to her urgent knock, the screen door already half off its hinges, with patches stitched on it as neatly as needlepoint, made a loud, protesting screech as the drunken, unkempt, middle-aged man threw it open.

“What the?” he said startled to see his pretty, dark-haired ex-wife at the door with the youngest of their four children in her arms. Standing there in front of him, Barbara had such an innocent doe-eyed look about her it almost made him wish he hadn’t divorced her.

But before he could say anything more, his Mother, a large, rotund Russian Orthodox Jew, lumbered up behind him. Looking with sheer contempt at the pretty young woman standing before her, she opened her arms wide and grinned at the beautiful, robust baby boy, all the while cooing at him.

Mo recognizing his beloved "Babushka," takes his drool-covered fingers out of his mouth long enough to give her a crooked smile, flashing several pearly while teeth on the bottom row, then pops them back in.

“Here!” “Take him!” “I can’t take care of him no more, Jim,” the look of sheer desperation on her face. “ I’m workin long hours now, and what with you not givin me any money, I can barely feed the other three as it is.” “So, here!” Barbara burst into sobs as she thrust eighteen month-old Mo into his paternal grandmother’s eagerly awaiting arms. The baby now startled by his Mother's loud voice begins to cry.

Barbara’s voice softened a bit looking at the toothless, old woman showering her youngest grandson with hugs and kisses, murmuring something reassuring to him in Yiddish, the only language the recent immigrant knew.

“Jim, I know your Mom’s never liked me much, but I know she loves Mo.” “She’ll take good care of him,” she said more to reassure herself than anyone else.

Sobbing, she leans over and kisses Mo on the head, habitually rearranging one of his wayward black curls one last time.

Running off the porch in tears, she glances over her shoulder and shouts “I love you, Mo.” “I’ll come back and git you as soon as I can!”

And, with that she climbs back into the still-running Olds, puts the car in drive, and sped away as quickly as she came, leaving a cloud of red dust and a part of her heart behind.

Copyright © 2006 Deborah Gibson Taylor

Reflection

Did you ever wish you could simply start over again? At anything. Life, for instance. Maybe that's why some people choose to believe in reincarnation because they want a chance to do it all over again, but this time do it right? I can understand why they want to believe it. Ever heard the saying "hindsight is 20/20?" Whoever said it wasn't kidding, in fact, they were right on. As you get older, it's such an amazing discovery looking back at your own personal winding "roadmap" that is/was something called your life. So many wrong turns in the bend, so many wrong choices. Sad, really. Some lessons are hard to learn, no? But, then again there were several MAJOR right ones, too. For example, my divorce, although nearly twenty years overdue, not for one minute have I regretted it. Then there's NOT accepting a transfer to New Orleans in 2000. I must admit I'm glad I wasn't in Hurricane Katrina, right in the midst of all that chaos and devastation. But now all the wrong choices are categorized as "regrets" in my mind and they are bitter pills to swallow. Perhaps the greatest one of all is how I've used my time. In the past I've been so willing to give my time to others, others who either haven't appreciated it or couldn't have cared less. So, now it's time I concentrate on what is most important to me and that is my writing. It's time to brush off the dust that has been collecting on my novel and finally get it finished. It's time to set up the scenes for my second one, and do the research for the trilogy of books I plan thereafter. Hmmm, all of it neatly stored away in my brain, patiently waiting for the time to birth it. From the pangs of remorse I've been feeling lately, somehow I think it's way overdue.

She's Not Me!

She's Not Me!

You can reach for the moon,

hitch your wagon to a star,

then run as far

as you think you can from me

still no matter how much you wish it to be...

she's not me!

She sprinkled stardust in your eyes,

but my love can mesmerize.

Go ahead try and flee

all my haunting memories,

but just remember...

she's not me!

She may touch you with her voice

that's totally your choice,

but what can really set you free

is your depth of love for me

and just remember...

she's not me!

By Deborah Gibson Taylor Copyright 2006

Trust In Him

Drink it up, soak it in.

Where life begins, where life ends.

Don't be afraid of the great unknown

God's forever on His throne.

So lift your face to Heav'n above,

always basking in His love.

Peace He gives, Peace He brings,

try and not worry 'bout anything.

For God is with us from beginning to end,

all my trust I place in Him.

Copyright © 2009 Deborah Gibson Taylor

"Miracle" by Christian Artist Darlene Zschech

MIRACLE

Never give up, never give in

Never look back

C'mon now my friend

You're not alone

The hope of tomorrow is calling

There's a brighter day

On the other side

But it's up to you to put back on your stride

So get up, step out, live it

Honey don't you give up

It's time for you to start to breathe again

For the sun and the moon have never stopped

Shining on you my friend

I know you feel the world has passed you by

But the greatness in you is starting to rise

Faded dreams need to be recoloured

I know you've had it bad

But it's time to dream again

Write it down my friend

Make it plain Oh yeah

That desire you hold

It will see the light of day

There's a beautiful day

On the other side

But it's up to you to put back on your stride

So get up, step out, live it

Honey don't you give up

What's it gonna take for you to see

That it's only the grace of God

That will set you free

What's it gonna take for you to

Open up your eyes

Look beyond the skies

Faded dreams need to be recoloured

I know you've had it bad

But it's time to live again

Write it down my friend

Make it plain oh Yeh

That desire you hold

It will see the light of day

Never, never, no never give up

Time to breathe again

Time to dream again

This desire you hold

It will see the light of lay

Never give up, never give in

Never look backC'mon now my friend

You're not alone

The hope of tomorrow is calling