Ever since buying a shoreline inn five years ago, owners Meri Wick and Marcus Little were focused on shepherding the bed and breakfast out of the pandemic and not really thinking about buying another inn, much less the historic Captain Stannard Inn a short walk away.
But in May, Wick and Little started considering it — fast.
“It has been a bit of whirlwind because on May 15 we didn’t think we’d have a second inn and on June 15, we did,” Wick said.
Wick and Little acquired the Captain Stannard Inn, first built in 1872 as a home for a seafaring Westbrook native, from 101 South Main Street Corp. — the same owners as the nearby Water’s Edge Resort & Spa — for $990,000, according to town records. The purchase was announced Tuesday.
Wick said buying the Captain Stannard on South Main Street made sense because there weren’t a lot of options for expanding their 10-room Westbrook Inn. In Connecticut, state law does not allow bed and breakfasts to have more than 12 guestrooms, Wick said.
There are plans to share amenities between the two properties, including kayaks and bicycles. Both inns are a short walk to the beach, where guests can use chairs, umbrellas and beach passes.
Wick, also president of the Connecticut Lodging Association, said the two inns plan to build on a event business that started at the Westbrook Inn during the pandemic. The events included “micro-weddings” that downsized guest lists to minimize the spread of Covid, Wick said.
“Between the two properties, we are well set up for moving beyond just social events into corporate gatherings, strategy sessions and small corporate meetings,” Wick said.
The newly-acquired, 10-room inn which averages about $250 a night, has been renamed The Stannard by Westbrook Inn. The bed-and-breakfast had been renovated by the previous owners who ran the inn for three years. But Wick said she and her husband plan room upgrades — including room wi-fi and bedside charging ports — and bringing back more touches of the original nautical atmosphere.
How much will be invested in the upgrades?
“Is my husband going to read this?” Wick quips. “We just bought the property. It was not inexpensive, but we’ll be investing tens of thousands of dollars in upgrades,” Wick said.
For decades, the inn served as the private residence of Elbert Stannard who went to sea at 14 and returned as a captain erecting a residence that befitted his rank. The house once had a wrap-around front porch, now long-gone.
Later, the house was transformed into the Menunketesuck Inn, followed by a long line of inns. In 1931, a barn was added to the rear of the house significantly expanding its size for use as a community gathering place and workforce housing.
The house survived a fire on its upper floors in the 1970s and move by the town — who had control of the property for a time — to raze the structure and build a new library. In the years that followed, the inn was converted back to private residence, then back to an inn, an antique shop and a rooming house.
A turning point came in 1991 when the Captain Stannard Bed & Breakfast Country Inn opened. For more than two decades, James and Mary Brewster, ran the inn and pursued major renovations that included a sprawling, 100-foot long porch off the back of the structure.
In the future, Wick said a former innkeeper room at the front of The Stannard could become a bridal suite.
Meanwhile, Wick said she is getting used to moving between the Westbrook Inn, on Boston Post Road, and The Stannard on nearby South Main.
“I run across the street like ‘Frogger’ about 20 times a day,” Wick said, referring the video game in which frogs dodge traffic on a busy street.
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at [email protected].
