I don’t think many people exist who haven’t at one time said to themselves “Someday I’m going to chuck it all and become an innkeeper.” Sometimes this is the result of bingeing episodes of Newhart. Remember that show? Dick and Joanna leave New York City for Vermont to own and operate the Stratford Inn.
For Donna Jamison Cave, it didn’t happen that way. “I woke up one morning after a vivid dream and said to my husband, Jeff, why don’t we buy the family farm and convert it,” Donna says as she shows me around The Inn at Fox Briar Farm, the eight-bedroom, 18th-century bed and breakfast in Buckingham that has been extensively renovated and offers views of three ponds, stone outbuildings, fields, woods, and old, towering shade trees.
Upon seeing the wedding venue, my first impulse is to divorce my husband so we can remarry here and have our reception in this elegant stone barn. Not wanting to be the cause of divorce, Donna suggests there are other celebrations for which the inn is well suited. Anniversaries. Birthdays. Showers. Corporate events. Maybe the renewal of our vows.
The couple introduced me to their niece, Kendall Rood, who is the official innkeeper. She tells me how she too had a strange feeling she would one day manage an inn. Kendall is also an artist, and three years before the decision to buy the farm, she felt strangely motivated to sketch out a bed and breakfast almost identical to what Fox Briar would become.
Before she came to innkeeping, Kendall had worked at an investment management company. She found she couldn’t stand sitting at a computer 11 hours a day. Now she barely sits at all. Some days she mows grass. Others she works in the garden. Every day she prepares breakfast for the guests and cleans rooms. Always, she tries to make sure people are enjoying themselves. Kendall says that one of her favorite moments always comes when she watches a bride and her maids as they dress and get ready. The inn has a special room for that purpose. Those moments always draw from her a smile and at the same time a lump in her throat.
Not that Kendall, Donna and Jeff are tenderfoots. (Tenderfeet?) They’ve worked incredibly hard to restore the inn. The windows were painted shut and they scraped off paint for months, and even boiled all the antique hardware to be able to use it again.
Jeff feels despite the limitless attractions of our area, it’s the search for peace that brings people here. That’s not only his opinion. He says guests have told him this. And it’s not just the generic peace of any bucolic place. I felt it right away. A kind of perfect stillness that’s increasingly more difficult to find in the prevailing chaos of daily life.
In 2021 Donna and Jeff purchased the 50-acre Fox Briar Farm from her siblings. Having grown up here, the place is so rich in personal history that “honoring the past and operating as a good steward” was always uppermost in her mind.
Originally purchased in 1965 by Earl and Sheila Jamison, it served as the family home while they were building Peddler’s Village. Today, each of the eight well-appointed rooms (even the en suite bathrooms are works of art) are named for each of the five Jamison children, their parents, grandmother, and an aunt.
Sherri was the equestrian in the family. Her room contains her riding ribbons won at local competitions. As in the other rooms, family touches add to the welcomed feeling you get, like you’re not really at an inn, but staying with a much loved relative — if that relative had a luxurious bathroom that made you want to spend hours in the shower.
There’s a pleasant dilemma at Fox Briar Farm. What to do when you’re spoilt for choice? As I was led from room to room, I found myself repeatedly saying, “This is my favorite! — No, this one!” I couldn’t decide which was the most magnificent view or which area I wanted to spend the most time in. If I stayed here, I know I’d have a hard time leaving my room — except maybe to sit on the bench by the pond and look at the landscapes and George. George is the name the family has given a bald eagle who returns nearly every day to perch in the same tree.
The common areas are just as inviting as the bedrooms, with fireplaces everywhere, making a winter visit worthwhile.
Further temptations lie in the fact that Peddler’s Village is only a five-minute walk over a stone bridge, not to mention all the places and activities that beckon in New Hope and its environs.
I wave goodbye to the three, thinking I must plan at least eight visits to Fox Briar Farm, so I can experience every one of the unique rooms. And maybe one day, I’ll be an innkeeper like Dick and Joanna — and Kendall, Donna, and Jeff. This place sure makes me want to.
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