Open for guests: Stacy Mansion owners open B&B with 19th-century charm

What began as a dream to bring back to life one of Tecumseh’s most notable homes is now a reality.

The Stacy Mansion has hosted its first guests, and its owners are “super excited” to have reservations on the books, said one of the bed and breakfast’s owners, Serena Riley.

“It was just like listening to the first few notes of ‘The Lion King’ or ‘Wicked,’” Danielle Ward, another one of the venue’s proprietors, said last week. “It gives me that whole-body sensation of, it’s exciting, we’re actually doing it, like it’s happening, it’s happening.”

Riley, Ward and Kim Freeman — who call themselves the Stacy Sisters — bought the six-bedroom mansion at 710 W. Chicago Blvd. this past November. It had been owned by an Illinois man who also had planned to run a B&B out of it but ran into problems and left it dormant for about 15 years before putting it on the market. Freeman, Riley and Ward were in a workout group together at the AJ Smith Recreation Center and had talked about someday opening a B&B, and when the mansion was listed for sale, they took advantage of the opportunity.

The house was built in 1848 by Consider Alphonso Stacy and his wife, Maria. Consider Stacy was a prominent attorney who served as Lenawee County’s probate judge for 12 years. The house was notable not only for its size at more than 5,000 square feet but also for the commanding view down Chicago Boulevard toward downtown from its front porch.

While none of the Stacy Sisters have a background in the hospitality field, they all have experience working with people or in service-related jobs, Freeman and Riley said. Riley is the customer experience director for a software-as-a-service startup, which has led her to become the B&B’s computer guru. Her work experience helps her understand the customer’s journey: “How do we make sure that we’re creating magic throughout the entire process?”

Freeman is a human resources manager at an automotive manufacturer, helping people develop their careers. Ward is a social worker in the emergency department at ProMedica Hickman Hospital in Adrian Township.

Along with their jobs and the B&B, they’re also moms.

“Moms are in the business of hospitality,” Ward said.

Preparing the mansion
There was a lot of work to do to get the mansion into shape to host guests. For one thing, it didn’t have a proper kitchen. So they had modern appliances installed along with cabinets and counters that fit the rest of the house’s woodwork and cabinetry.

The kitchen is not a commercial kitchen, but they can serve breakfast to overnight guests, prepared by Freeman and Ward.

“Right now, because we’re working full time, our services are just weekends, usually with the full breakfast on Saturday or Sunday mornings,” Riley said. “If we open up during the weekdays by request, it’ll most likely be a continental breakfast.”

They also had to furnish the house. The only piece that came with the house was a large, solid wood buffet that is now in the dining room next to the kitchen. Even that was a chore to move because it had been stored in a utility closet. Multiple attempts by multiple moving companies were made before one crew could extricate it and maneuver it into the dining room.

For the rest of the house, they scoured estate sales and Facebook Marketplace for pieces that would fit in a late 19th-century home. Friends who knew they were looking for vintage items would offer up things they had in their basements. And they needed almost everything from furniture to glassware. They kept the drapes that came with the house, which were from when it was a B&B in the 1990s. They stored items while they and local contractors worked on painting rooms and refinishing woodwork. They collected artwork for each room, including portraits of Consider and Maria Stacy that are in the Consider Parlor.

Some of the items have a story.

“I still think one of my favorites is going to get the parlor furniture,” Freeman said. “The guy had it. It was his mom’s. He was never allowed to sit on it as a kid. His mom passed. He had to sell it. She would be thrilled to know that it was here. We’re going to sit on it, and we’re going to let him come over and sit on it.”

“We’ve got so many people whose grandmothers are happy in heaven, because that’s what they have said, ‘My grandmother would be so happy in heaven knowing that this is in the house,’” Ward said.

“So we’re trying to honor the past with the antique furniture and some of those things, like quilts and china, but also knowing that we need to modernize certain things like TV, air conditioning and heat, all of that too,” Riley said. “It’s been a balance, but I think, at least from everyone’s comments when we had the open house and everything, it seems like we’ve done a good job with that.”

The open house during their grand opening weekend June 13-15 saw about 250 people pass through the doors to see the fruits of their efforts.

Setting the tone
The Sisters named some of the rooms after Stacy family members. On the main floor, the formal living room is Consider Parlor, the formal dining room is Maria’s Hearth, and Scovel’s Library is named for one of the Stacys’ children who also became a lawyer and at one time owned The Tecumseh Herald. The second floor has Lois’ Lounge, which is a community space with coffee, tea and snacks. The Stacys had two daughters named Lois: Lois Esther, who died at the age of 2, and Lois Loana, who lived to be 73.

The bedroom suites are named after wines: Merlot is the lone suite on the main floor, and the Champagne, Cabernet, Riesling and Rosé suites are on the second floor.

They considered other ways to name the rooms before settling on wines.

“It started first with names of the original owners,” Riley said. “Then we moved to was there a specific flower in each room or was there a specific color in each room? And then we’re like, this is too hard. We’re just doing wines.”

The names fit the color of each suite.

“And it just fits the house,” Ward said. “It feels like it gives it a little bit of a classy vibe.”

To add to the upscale feel, they worked with Paper Street Soap in Tecumseh to develop a signature scent for use throughout the house. It’s used for the shampoo, conditioner and body wash in all of the bathrooms and in diffusers in the venue. It’s also available for sale in various items, including candles and personal care products.

That’s not the only merchandise they have. They’ve partnered with Bat Shirt Crazy in Tecumseh to make Stacy Mansion-branded hoodies, T-shirts and other apparel.

“That’s one of the funnest parts, at least, that I feel like we’re having right now, is collaborating with everybody locally and coming up with events and starting to get those on the calendar,” Ward said.

They’re serving Musgrove & Co. coffee and working with The Boulevard Market on their charcuterie boards, Riley said.

To further include the community — and help with their costs — they have sponsors for the suites and they offered engraved bricks for the exterior walkways.

“We didn’t want to just take, for lack of a better phrase, handouts,” Riley said. “We wanted people to have something to leave behind in memory of them helping us, too.”

“A lot of people said, ‘What can I do?’” Freeman said.

Engraved bricks are included in the wedding packages so that their guests will have a physical reminder of the occasion and perhaps return for anniversaries.

The venue is available for all sorts of parties, but they’re open to other experiences, too. For example, a holistic health provider is expected to offer sound bathing sessions in the second-floor event space.

Sustaining support
In the seven months or so since they bought the house, they’ve found that being in a partnership has been easier than expected. Ward said they’ve had some heavy, hard discussions, but they’ve supported each other.

“I think that’s part of our jam, anyway, is wanting to uplift each other,” she said.

But they’ve also had some unexpected challenges, like the magnitude of the property, Ward said. They had an idea of what they were getting into with the interior of the house, but not so much with the yard and gardens.

“Two weeks ago, I pulled into the driveway and there’s a tree down,” Freeman said. “It never occurred to me to think — I looked in my own yard when there was a storm. I forgot I had a second house to look at. So unexpected things like that.”

How much community support they’ve received also was unexpected. They hosted a cookout on Memorial Day for everyone who’s volunteered time and talents to help restore the house, and it was difficult to get them to relax and enjoy the day.

“It was hard to have them stop working, wanting to do stuff,” Freeman said.

“I think that has just been incredibly helpful when we go through these hard things, to know that we’ve got people behind us waiting for us to get this up and running,” Riley said.