A Taste of England in the Vermont Countryside
A Taste of England in the Vermont Countryside
By Chuck Lyons, President, "The Gazette"
March 30, 2001
Helene Saxby was born in Bristol, Conn. But she is really quite English. And now she and her husband, Alan, a Yorkshireman, have brought the flavor of his country to her country at their English bed and breakfast in Putney, Vermont.
Sipping a large cup of tea at a kitchen table next to a monstrous cast iron stove, Helene talks of those days in the fall of 1999 when she and Alan purchased Beckwood Pond with its 15 acres and a home built in 1803.
They chose Vermont, Helene says, because of the beauty of all its four seasons, the open spaces, and the warmth and straightforward approach of the people who live there.
But Helene traveled a long way to end up two states north of her birthplace. Her family moved from Connecticut to New York City to San Diego, Calif., where she attended school and landed her first teaching job in Palo Alto. She moved back to New York where she earned a master's degree in gifted and talented education and established such programs in Connecticut and California.
She fell in love with England while traveling with her brother for a year and a half through that country and Western Europe. She made a friend, Maggie, a teacher who became a good source in helping her find work in education in England. Her friend also introduced her to Alan.
Helene and Alan got married and lived in England for six years. But as much as Helene wanted to transplant herself from America to England, Alan wanted to move from England to America. And so they transported themselves to Southern California near Helene's family where Alan worked as an aerospace design engineer.
The allure of owning a B&B traveled with the couple.
Apart from B&B's being part of Alan's family heritage, Helene had fallen in love with the warmth and hospitality offered by bed and breakfasts while traveling in England and Europe and likewise had dreamed of being an innkeeper.
She began collecting recipes and in 1983 wrote, "Cooking Inn Style: A Collection of Country Inn Recipes from England, Ireland, Wales and New England," a year after her mother had passed away.
She dedicated the book to her mother with these words, "To my mother whose example of making everyone who entered her home feel like a special friend and honoured guest led me to seek out this feeling wherever I journeyed. My search led to the Country Inn."
There is more than romance to owning a B&B. Helene acknowledges that the first year is like the first year of any new business with its financial challenges. It is hard work and it is fortunate that Alan and Helene, who lived on a sailboat for a year where they learned much about restoring and preserving wood, brought the skills and knowledge required to maintain the 200-year-old Beckwood Pond.
All of the hard work, however, is behind the scenes to guests. When you arise on a Vermont winter morning, you are greeted with a sumptuous breakfast created by Helene and Alan and served with that warmth and hospitality in a place filled with family heirlooms, antiques, country furniture, and artwork and tradition.
At Helene's insistence we were joined for breakfast by our two daughters, who had spent the night at a nearby college campus. Good innkeepers have that special gift of blending in good conversation while refilling the coffee or tea cups. They answer questions about where to go and what to do while they and their guests exchange glimpses of their lives.
The difference at Beckwood Pond is that the conversations are enriched with poignant, humorous one-liners from Alan carried so well by his English accent.
After 22 years of marriage, this American woman and Yorkshireman make you feel like they have fulfilled their dreams here at Beckwood Pond.
They are not without their moments of missing England. Alan remembers the coastal villages and wishes he had access to certain foods (mainly condiments).
Helene looks forward to occasional letters from the postwoman where they lived during their their last four years in England, with her lengthy accounts about life in the little hamlet with 12 houses near Winchester.
For her, England will always be home. But for now, in Vermont, at Beckwood Pond, she and Alan are doing what they love -- hosting guests and friends, from England and America, in a place of tradition where the seasons mark the time.
Chuck Lyons is president and publisher of The Gazette.