A decade later when Fitch had some medical problems that he would later overcome, an opportunity arose for the dream to come to fruition.
“I randomly called a Realtor friend just out of the blue — and it’s God’s timing, big time; his timing is perfect — she said, ‘Well, I’m quietly selling (Fitch’s) property,’” Nancy said. “I talked to my husband, and he told me, ‘I know this has been a dream of yours for a long time, so let’s go for it.’”
The deal worked not only for the Greenfields but also the Fitches, who had lived in the inn while they operated it.
“What was so beautiful about it was that (Fitch) needed a place to live when he left here because he had been living here, so he bought our house on East Morrison, and we bought the bed and breakfast, and the rest is history — new history,” Nancy said.
The Greenfields took their first guest at the Scott Station Inn on Aug. 5, 2010. The bed and breakfast has six themed rooms, each with a private bathroom, and offers a large country breakfast that is cooked “as organically and naturally” as the owners can afford.
“I love working with people; I love making people happy and providing good breakfasts for them and just sharing the town history and the house history, as much as I know, making them smile, making them happy while they’re here,” Nancy said.
Nancy said she believed the house was built in the 1890s, and it served as a dormitory and a boarding house before Fitch bought it in 1990 and converted it into a bed and breakfast, adding bathrooms and updating the utilities. She said she has heard from a Wilmore resident who stayed in the dormitory and courted boyfriends in the parlor as well as a man who was born in an upstairs bedroom in 1937.
While Wilmore is not a typical tourist attraction, the long-standing education institutions of Asbury University and Asbury Theological Seminary keep a steady flow of traffic through the front door of the inn.
“This is a perfect town for business, because with the seminary and the college, you always have something going on, between graduations and reunions and the film festival at the university, parents bringing their high-schoolers to visit the college, the week-long classes they have at the seminary all year — there’s always something going on, plus what Wilmore puts on here,” Nancy said. “We’re consistently busy, which is a blessing; that’s what we want.”
Those who stay at Scott Station get a unique experience inside the building in addition to the themes of the bedrooms.
The structure itself is a puzzle to guests, Nancy said, with outdoor wood siding on an indoor hallway wall and many small steps as the floor level changes — all of which are marked carefully with black and yellow stripes.
“The people love it — we have some old newspaper articles hanging, and they want to know the history,” she said. “They’re always looking and asking what we can tell them about the house ... they’re trying to figure out how it was configured and how it looked back in the day.”
The Greenfields have been working to update the house, putting a new roof and a new furnace in over the winter. Nancy said she will target the exterior of the house this spring; new siding and windows are currently being installed.
“Joe and I have worked hard to give Scott Station Inn a warm and inviting atmosphere for our guests,” she said. “We want them to feel like they’re coming home.”
Nancy and husband Joe, both 57, went out on a limb to buy the building, trusting in their Christian faith as well as the beauty and history of the town.
“This is quite a faith leap for us,” she said. “You don’t really want to get a big old mortgage in your 50s, but we’re confident God will provide, and we’re in Wilmore, so how could we fail?”
For more information, call Scott Station Inn at 859-858-0121 or visit www.scottstationinn.com.
