Here’s the sales pitch.
It’s a pre-Confederation building located at the centre of a quiet rural community, but only a short drive from Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph and Fergus.
It’s an established business that, according to its current owners, has room to grow and expand.
It has six bedrooms, a 40-person dining room, a kitchen, a sitting area and separate living quarters for its owners.
It could all be yours for $1.3 million.
And if you’re not entirely sure what you’d be getting into – well, neither did its current owners. Or people who owned it before that.
The Maryhill Inn, a bed and breakfast which was built in 1853 and last renovated in 2000, is on the market. Current owners Webb and Sandra Kamminga say they’re ready to retire.
They bought the business 12 years ago. At the time, Sandra was a nurse looking for a career change, while Webb was pulling down shifts as a supervisor at Linamar.
“I wanted to do something totally different, but still work with people. This was just an amazing fit,” Sandra says.
The Kammingas learned the ropes of the business from the previous owners, who had also gotten into the bed-and-breakfast game without any experience. They learned not only about the equipment and financial side of the business, but about the importance of the customer experience.
“You just have to be honest with people,” Sandra says.
Before long, they developed a game Webb calls “Dutch bingo.” When they get guests with Dutch ancestry, they try to figure out if they have any friends of relatives in common.
“We get some very interesting characters coming here,” Webb says.
While the Kammingas hope whoever purchases the property from them will keep the bed and breakfast operational, they’re also brimming with ideas for additional uses for the building. Already a gathering place for family functions in Maryhill, they could see its dining room being turned into a nice restaurant.
With reporting by Daryl Morris
