Couple turn this old house into historic bed-and-breakfast

Source: The Flint Journal
Overgrown vines and weeds couldn't obscure the view of Sean and Elaine Rosekrans' dream. The couple from the Detroit suburb of Center Line bought a century-old brick home on Silver Lake Road, seeking to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. They figured it would take six months.

It took 18 months - but they say it was worth the wait for the Wolcott House Bed & Breakfast.

The Inn, Genesee County's fourth bed-and-breakfast, opened this month in a stately Italianate-style brick house near downtown Fenton and U.S. 23.

Getting to that point required extensive landscaping and the construction of a walkway, patio and parking area. Inside, they installed new plumbing and electrical wiring. Woodwork was stripped and refinished and new floors put in place.

"We did a majority of the work ourselves," she said. "We said, 'If our marriage survives this, we can survive anything."

The Rosekranses now are enjoying the somewhat easier task of researching the home's history, though that, too, has offered its share of obstacles.

They have been able to trace owners only as far back as the early 1920s, when the home was bought by Anson and Lula May Wolcott. The family owned and operated the Wolcott Mill of Fenton, which later moved to Argentine Township.

The inn was named for its most prominent residents, and Elaine Rosekrans said they recently bought some of the mill's original flour sacks. The sacks have been framed and hung on the wall.

A niece of the former owners donated some Wolcott family photos, which also grace the walls.

After Anson Wolcott's death in 1957, his family sold the house and it became a home for the retired women of the Christian Science Foundation, and, later, a Baptist Church. The house then reverted to a single-family residence, but had been vacant for at least two years when the Rosekranses bought it in 1999.

The home has three guest rooms. The largest, the honeymoon suite, has a Jacuzzi tub and private full bathroom. The other two each have a half-bathroom but share a shower in the hall.

The Wolcott joins three other county B&Bs;: the Avon House in Flint, Cinnamon Stick Farm in Thetford Township and Main Street Manor in Flushing.

Rather than competition, Rosekrans said there has been a spirit of cooperation with at least one other local B&B.;

"We've been talking with the (owners) of the B&B; in Flushing. They've been very helpful to us," she said.

Rosekrans said her inspiration has come from a friend who runs a B&B; in Marine City, a small town on the banks of the St. Clair River near Port Huron.

"She's actually who I wanted to model myself after," she said. "She talked me into it, encouraged me."

Rosekrans and her husband, both pharmaceutical sales representatives, hope one day to quit their day jobs and devote their full attention to running the inn.

But whether or not that goal is met, they plan to savor their accomplishment. "We looked at it this way," she said. "If the B&B; fails, we still have the opportunity of living in a nice, historic home."
Source: The Flint Journal