Many bed and breakfasts claim to take you back in
time. They believe that if they pair antique furniture with heavy drapes and
claw foot tubs that you will think you are back in the Victorian age. The Wilson House Bed and
Breakfast in Ocean Springs, Mississippi does not have to
try as hard as some and takes you back in time just because of its nature. The
Wilson House Bed and Breakfast is full of collectibles that
the innkeepers are holding for people who were affected by Katrina, has a large
piano and several guitars in the living room and has the ambiance of an old
home since it truly is an old log house with a rich history.
The Wilson House Inn Bed and Breakfast was
originally home to Joel Pinson Wilson and his family in 1923 on their tree farm
in Orange Grove, Mississippi. The home was passed down to Clark B. Wilson and
his wife Marjorie. In 1993 the Wilson House Inn Bed and Breakfast was moved
thirty miles from the tree farm to where it stands today in Ocean Springs,
Mississippi thanks to the new owners. Unfortunately the old tree farm is no
longer in existence. According to innkeeper Brian 'they' really have "paved
paradise" and in lieu of an actual parking lot have created an automobile
sales lot there. The saddest part of the move of the Wilson House Inn Bed and
Breakfast was that the old home site had been home to a Moon tree (tree whose
seeds had been brought to the moon and back) which is now cut down and lost
forever.
The Wilson House Inn Bed and Breakfast has kept
much of what was in-tact when Marjorie Wilson still lived in the home, sitting
in the upstairs grand room and writing her gardening column every week without
missing a deadline for 55 years for the Biloxi Sun Herald. There are paintings
that Marjorie has drawn in the many of the rooms in the Wilson House Inn Bed
and Breakfast including a pastel of the home that Ethan Allen was hidden in
during the war. In the room that my wife and I stayed in there was a 1955 Life
magazine from the inauguration of Queen Elizabeth still sitting there as though
it were this week's read. Needless to say this classic read enthralled my wife
for hours.
The Wilson House Inn Bed and Breakfast itself is
something to marvel at. This log home is still sturdy after all these years, a
few hurricanes and being cut into three pieces and moved thirty miles. The
walls are either the original log walls or tongue and groove pine that only a
careful craftsman can construct. The bedrooms have queen sized beds with
country quilts on them. The rooms are a bit small and dark but this fact
illumes what it must have felt like to actually live there. If these walls
could talk! They have not been warped by the years or blown out to be larger.
The living room at the Wilson House Bed and
Breakfast is a place that southern women would gather and gossip and possibly
spend an impromptu night having a party at the likes of which you only read
about in a John Steinbeck novel. The dining room at the Wilson House Inn Bed
and Breakfast is a treasure trove of collectibles from a Campbell's Soup
collection of statues, clocks and cups, a jelly jar collection, old license
plates and product jars, antique cookie jars and so much more; all resting on
true antique furniture.
When my wife and I were barnstorming through the
old South the Wilson House Inn Bed and Breakfast was one of the vintage places
that we stayed that was truly unique. We are on a trip around to every state to
review bed and breakfasts because of unique places like this one. People need
to stay in bed and breakfasts more. You get to know the town, you get a sense
of history or a great story about the house and your stay can be really
wonderful. The places we have been to run the gamut from modern and luxurious
to truly antique to breathtaking get-a-ways by the beach. The stories that we
heard from innkeeper Brian, the homemade strawberry pancakes and the feel of
the Wilson House Inn Bed and Breakfast should be seen by everyone.
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