Photography By Scott Suchman
In the typical B&B backstory, a couple with a dream toils and scrimps for years to finally buy a dilapidated but charming fixer-upper, and, with prodigious applications of TLC and elbow grease—plus maybe two or three day jobs on the side—manage to keep the enterprise afloat.
And then there’s the history behind the Blue Heron Inn.
Annie Michnowicz had worked for the Fairfax County school system for thirty-one years. After her husband died, she moved to Solomons, where they kept a boat. Richard Rogers had spent thirty-six years making maps for National Geographic magazine. “I never planned on retiring,” he says, “but they made such a nice offer for a buyout that I couldn’t refuse.”
Over the years, they occasionally bumped into each other at Zahniser’s Yachting Center. Romance followed, and after they got together, they moved into an apartment in what had been the original Dry Dock restaurant, a longtime local landmark.
One evening, they received an intriguing offer from John Simpson, owner of the local Holiday Inn. Simpson had built a harborside family home that, following his divorce, he turned into a B&B. “John saw us at a civic association meeting and said, ‘You know, I need a manager, and I’d like for you all to do it,’” says Annie. “I guess we were ready for a change, and he piqued our curiosity. We figured, ‘What do we have to lose?’”
So they moved into a ground-floor apartment in the Blue Heron Inn, a white 1998 Charleston colonial-style house—which means the front entrance and fifty-foot front porch faces the water. The inn was squeezed into a narrow lot behind Kim’s Key Lime
Pies & Coffee Shop, on the isthmus connecting the mainland with the part of Solomons that really was once an island.
Inside, one end of the bright, contemporary great room that occupies most of the ground floor is a home entertainment center (thirty-six-inch TV, DVD, VCR, stereo). The other end is the dining area where custom-cooked breakfasts—Annie made me delicious German pancakes with raspberries, sausage, fruit salad, and serious coffee on a recent stay—are served just about whenever you want it.
Totally unadorned by typical B&B bric-a-brac, the great room displays paintings by local artists—including a nude of (purportedly) the owner’s girlfriend—and some of Richard’s model boats: the Pride of Solomons, a topsail schooner modeled after the Pride of Baltimore, and the R. Kingston, a circa-1944 Chesapeake workboat, among many others. “I built them all from scratch, and they’re all radio-controlled,” says Richard, who still practices his hobby between duties running the inn.
Annie led me upstairs to my balcony suite, which had a large bedroom with a California king bed covered with luxuriant 600-threadcount sheets, sturdy walnut furniture, an easy chair big enough for at least two, and a reading nook with a couple of comfy chairs. The bathroom “suite” has a separate chamber for a commode and sit-down shower stall equipped with a gadget that can turn it into a steam room. I spent most of my evening out on the balcony, lounging in the chaise and watching a parade of pleasure craft ply the channel between the Blue Heron and Moll’s Leg, a former cemetery islet so-named after local fishermen supposedly saw a lower appendage floating by.
The next morning Annie and Richard took me on a tour of the rest of the house, beginning with the other second-floor balcony suite. It has a sitting room with a harbor view connected by French doors to a bedroom and walls they had repainted in cheery turquoise. “Everything had been painted sandy beige, and we got a chance to select new paint colors,” says Annie.
“I always felt the house was an unhappy house, and our goal was to bring life back, give it a lot of color.”
Two smaller third-floor dormer rooms have balconies overlooking the harbor and Patuxent views on the other side. Both have queen-sized beds; one features macho Southwestern-style décor and several pieces of “relaxed formal” Bob Timberlake furniture. The other room boasts a beachy color scheme, with bright heron-blue walls and all-white furniture. “These rooms don’t have balconies, but you get views of the harbor on one side and on the other side of the Patuxent and St. Mary’s County on the other side,” says Annie.
Amenities include wireless Internet, bikes to borrow, and access to a private dock just off the porch with slips up to forty feet with a five-foot draw (water and electricity available).
The Blue Heron is in impeccable shape now, but getting there was no day at the beach. As of this past January 1, Calvert County required new B&Bs to install sprinkler systems and fire alarms, “which means that the whole house had to be practically gutted and the sprinkler heads run through the bulkheads,” says Richard. “Not only was it time consuming, but it was costly and it was dirty.”
The Blue Heron is within strolling distance of several restaurants. Closest is DiGiovanni’s Dock of the Bay (410-394-6400), which renders seafood with Northern Italian flair. Stoney’s Kingfisher (410-394-0236) offers harbor views and the biggest and best crabcakes around.
On Annie and Richard’s recommendation, I dined at Catherine and Deborah’s CD Café (410-326-3877), a chummy hangout for locals—with no view whatsoever—where I thoroughly enjoyed a huge chunk of blackened ahi tuna salad on a king-size bed of greens and felt very much part of the crowd.
Needless to say, running a B&B has been a learning experience. Early on, Annie and Richard scored their first innkeeper horror story. “The second or third person who stayed here stiffed us on a check,” says Annie. “When we called, he was apologetic and said he’ll put another check in the mail, and this went on for a while.” Annie’s nephew, a would-be policeman, ended up tracking down the rascal’s phone number, and his wife—who had never stayed at the Blue Heron—ended up sending the money.
However, most guests have been far more agreeable. “We’ve met really interesting and fun people,” says Annie. And the neophyte innkeepers have managed to get by with a little help from their competitors. “There are three active B&Bs on the island; we’re the newest. [The other two] have been super-helpful. Now I can pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, this is the situation. What would you do?’”
Blue Heron Inn—A Bed & Breakfast
14614 Solomons Island Rd., Solomons, Md., 410-326-2707 or http://www.blueheronbandb.com
Rates: Balcony suites $200 per night, rooms $150 per night
Freelancer Theodore Fischer writes from Silver Spring, Md.
