------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pinehaven Bed & Breakfast, Baraboo, Wisconsin
In the Midwest, Baraboo, Wisconsin is synonymous with the Dells, tourists, waterslides, and sunburns. Images of Jellystone and circuses come to mind as soon as the words “Interstate” and “94” make it out your gob.
When Amy and I agreed to meet in Baraboo for a weekend getaway, I was afraid our relaxing mini-vacation would collide with distracted families shepherding legions of five-year-old versions of me…spilling pop, whining, and bumping into people as a general pastime. We thought that a Bed & Breakfast might be a great way to avoid the largest teeming pits of urchin me’s, so we started poking around. We stumbled on Pinehaven B&B, run by Marge & Lyle Getschman.
Pinehaven B & B was an absolute delight. It’s a blast from the days of rooming houses along highways before big hotels were around. OK, it’s a lot nicer than that. If the term “estate” can be used to describe a beautified, well-manicured former pasture, then Pinehaven is Baraboo’s prize estate B&B. With so much open area, you feel like it must be meant for more than Pinehaven’s four rooms. The whole grounds are really the brainchild of the owners, and there is some real pride in the family about the progress. The before and after pictures in the living room are memorable because they show the staggering amount of work and design that have gone into creating the Pinehaven property. (Note that the Before pics are yellowed black and whites from 1959.) The whole property rests on former pasture grounds. As Owner Lyle said, “There wasn’t nothin’ here then…” Now there is a man-made lake, an acre of mowed lawn, acres of horse pasture, and active corn farming east and west (Lyle’s sons live in two adjacent farms….the area is referred to as “Getschmanville because of all the Getschmans living around here). A gazebo, trails, and wonderful plantings and landscaping beautify the grounds all over.
Pinehaven exudes the rural ethos of the farms that surround it on all sides. First, there is just the shear amount of work that must have gone into the grounds. In the same way that old Victorian-era mansions with fine stonework and stained glass can’t be built anymore because the labor is too expensive, creating a Pinehaven from scratch these days would be a bank breaker.
Second, the house’s living room is the social center Pinehaven. The B&B’s only television is cabineted there, and Marge, the octogenarian co-hostess and wife of Lyle, asks ahead of time if you intend to watch any TV or VHS movies that evening. You reason that if her boys lived without TV in their rooms, you will, too. There are also a handful of games in the living room and a gaming table on which to play. An elderly piano rests in the corner, replete with a yellowed Sousa-esque collection of sheet music.
Marge, a farm wife of half a century, puts her kitchen to hard work. The homemade breads and applesauce evidence her years cooking for a houseful of hungry farm boys. The Getschman Belgian horses are known around the State and have pranced and pulled in dozens of parades and circuses. They laze and munch around the pasture, greeting guests with an odd snort or vacant stare.
If our weekend stay in Baraboo began with visions of Kool-Aid smiles on hyper mini-me’s, it ended with smiles and regrets of leaving the farm. Bed & Breakfast houses have a wonderful charm that leave the most well-intended hotels and motels in the dust. Maybe it’s because you’re staying in the hosts’ homes and sharing their roofs. Whatever the magic is, Pinehaven has got it in spades.
No comments:
Post a Comment