After sale, Loeb House Inn will change roles

1882 -- Year the house was built


16 -- Christmas trees owner Dick Nagel puts up at the bed and breakfast every year during the Christmas holidays


59 -- Weddings the Loeb House Inn has hosted in the past 15 years


6 -- Rooms available for overnight stays -- five guest rooms and the innkeeper's room


365 -- Days of the year the bred and breakfast is open

For the past 15 years, the Loeb House Inn, a Victorian home owned by Dick Nagel and nestled on a hill in downtown Lafayette, has served the public as a bed and breakfast.

That role for the house formerly owned by businessman Solomon Loeb and his wife, Carrie, will cease at the end of the month when new owners take over the property and convert the two-story structure back to a private residence.

David Johnson and Liz Malaski, a couple from Washington, D.C., bought the Loeb House Inn at 708 Cincinnati St. earlier this year for $387,500.

"They were looking for a historic house. They came through it the day after Christmas and have relatives living in north-central Indiana," Nagel said. "They don't want to do a bed and breakfast. I don't blame them but I wish they would.

"This home is full of large rooms. It's really been ideal. It's been a wonderful run."

Constructed by grain dealer Emerson Knight in 1882, the home was purchased by Loeb in 1895. Hoosier Hosts Inc. -- Nagel and two business partners -- bought the property 15 years ago from the Odd Fellows lodge which had converted the building into apartments.

The client base for the only B&B still operating in Lafayette -- the Perrin House Bed & Breakfast closed in 2008 -- includes people coming to the area for vacation, activities at Purdue University, weddings and Christmas celebrants.

Also closing at the end of the month will be the Tea Room at the Loeb House Inn, which has served customers on Thursdays and Fridays for the past five years.

"It's bittersweet. Not many people have a dream and get to see their dream come true. Dick was open-minded enough to allow me to do it," said Sue Rothenberger, who owns the Tea Room. "Without the ambiance of this place I'm just another place with a good lunch. It's been a pretty steady business. We're sad that people won't be able to come in and sample a piece of Lafayette."

Nagel has bookings for the Loeb House Inn scheduled until the end of the month and also plans to hold a yard sale the weekend of July 23-24 to dispose of some items from the B&B that he's leaving behind.

Highlands Inn Up For Sale | Gay New Hampshire

Summer is upon us in the White Mountains and I am reminded of the first summer I spent here 28 years ago after buying the property that has become the Highlands Inn.  I had no idea then, what the Highlands Inn would become and how important it would be in the lives of so many women.  It touches me very deeply to know that some of you who are reading this have met  some of your best friends and even partners at the place born of my dreams and many people’s hard work.   I am profoundly grateful for all of you who have expressed how much the Highlands Inn means to you and the part it has played in your lives.

As I acknowledge the 28 glorious years I have spent at this haven in New Hampshire, it is natural that my thoughts turn to a time when I will turn over this dream to someone else.  There will come a time when I will need to retire.  I take a page from the playbook of corporate America, and let you know that it is time for me to think about some succession planning.  So it is with mixed emotions that I announce that I have decided to put the Inn on the market with the sincere hope that the next owner of the Highlands Inn will continue its longstanding tradition of being the sanctuary it has been to so many women.

Some would say that it is unusual for an innkeeper to make such a public announcement regarding a plan to sell. Often a sale of this type is very private and confidential.  However there are many things that are not usual, as you well know, about the Highlands Inn.  The Highlands Inn has always been more than the buildings and property.  The specialness of this place has been co-created with all of the many women that have visited and the power of establishing a special place for women when such space was rare.  From our porch in New Hampshire, we have seen civil rights legislation outlaw discrimination against us.  We have been providing a place for women to declare their commitments in formal ceremonies both small and lavish for close to 30 years.  Now those ceremonies celebrate legal marriage.   We have seen the travel industry come to embrace us with even major corporations dubbing themselves “gay friendly”; yet we retain our belief that, as Jodi Picoult said when she mentioned us in her latest book, “there’s something really nice about being with your people.”  There are many stories that the Highlands Inn and the women who love her have been here to witness.    I am hoping that one of you reading this may be interested and equipped to write the future chapters of the story of this special place.

So-- you want to be an innkeeper, the definitive guide to operating a successful bed-and-breakfast or country inn

Painters and their works, a dictionary of great artists who are not now alive

Running a Bed & Breakfast for Dummies

The Spectator

Sale of "Federal Inn" newspaper cutting