Bed-and-breakfast owner looking forward to another year of business

KEOTA - Owning a mansion was Marjie Koehler's childhood dream. As an adult, she made that dream a reality and in June of 1987, opened the Elmhurst Bed and Breakfast- the oldest bed-and-breakfast in Washington County.

Koehler said growing up, the family farm was surrounded by timber and big farms and she always wanted one of her own. She also wanted a mansion to go with it.

Being an avid reader, she often read books where people wanted a place to stay when they were traveling. She said she decided the best way to have both things would be to open a bed-and-breakfast so she could have the house she always dreamed of and share it with people who were traveling through town.

She kept her eye out for the perfect house and before long, someone told her the home at 1994 Keokuk-Washington Road in Keota was for sale. She said she was 'beyond belief” but quickly jumped at the opportunity.

'I'd never dreamed I'd have this one though. The history of it is fantastic,” she said.

Koehler said construction on the eight bedroom, 10,060 square foot, three-floor home began in 1904 and was finished in 1906. It was built for the Singmaster family, the world's largest importer of draft horses.

She said some believe the family immigrated to the states via the Mayflower and ended up in Pennsylvania before traveling to Ohio and eventually Iowa in 1840, before it was even a state. Since then, the family built five mansions in and around Keota.

Opening such a large home by herself was exciting, not scary, she said. Koehler said she never failed at anything else in her life and had no concern she would be anything but successful at this either.

For the first few years the bed-and-breakfast was open, Koehler said she had more than 6,000 people come through the doors. She said lucky for her, she doesn't get quite that many anymore. It was almost too hard to keep up with.

The cleaning and laundry are the hardest part, she said, but the people she has met throughout her 30 year journey as a business owner have made it all worth it. From hunters to football game goers, Koehler said they have all stayed in her home and she welcomes them every time.

'I have made so many good friends for life in my home. You just click with them,” she said.