Greetings and Welcome from the Matthews Family! Your innkeepers since September 2006, it is with great pleasure we come from Arizona to inhabit and love this exquisite Bed and Breakfast Inn.

 

In 1911 Henrietta Jackson Krabill received 270 Montgomery Ave as a Bride's gift on her wedding day. She married Roy Henry Krabill from Ohio lived here with her husband and only son Albert Jackson Krabill her entire life. "Jack" Krabill married Dorothy Ingram Haynes of Lexington and they had three children.

When Grandfather Krabill passed away about 1967, Jack and Dorothy moved their family back to 270 Montgomery. Elinor Sinars, one of Jack's three children emailed me this lovely description of the home as it was when they lived here:

 

"The house was quite different before Tony Sills redid it.   As you walked in the front door, you entered into the front room.  To the left was the living room which opened then into the dining room.  I believe Tony bought the original sideboard which we had in the dining room when we sold the house after my father died and my mother had to go to a nursing home. If you send me a picture of the side board I can tell you. (Yes, we have it in the The Club Car Dining Room now).

 

At the bottom of the stairs - the room to the right was originally a bedroom but my parents turned it into a den and converted the original kitchen to a bedroom and bath.  (My mom was sick and couldn't go up the stairs.)

The orginal screened in porch (where I have fond memories of "snapping beans" with my grandmother was made into a kitchen.

 

Upstairs there was one small bath with a claw foot tub and wainscoting and four bedrooms.  My bedroom was the front room that looked over Montgomery Ave.

 

It wasn't a fancy house but it was a house full of love and laughter.   We always had Sunday "dinner" every week either at 270 Montgomery or at 131 Montgomery where my great aunt lived (Henrietta's sister).  It was a very Mayberry type of town and time." Elinor Krabill Sinars resides in Alexandria, VA with her family, her siblings are in Florida.  

The Sills' purchased the home and renovated it somewhere around 1988, opening it as the Sills Inn. We are the 4th Innkeepers and hopefully the last for many years to come! It was so special to have first the descendents of the Krabill family as guests, and then the Sills family each year--what a treat to be able to hear their stories and reminisce.

 

I think Elinor summed it up beautifully--it isn't so much the house itself, but the love that you can feel here--it lingers and it is comforting. Thank you for sharing your story, Elinor!