By Jason Emerson

Editor

A new bed and breakfast is set to open next month on East Genesee Street in the village of Fayetteville.

“A Sense of Place” bed and breakfast, owned by Pam Bender, will have two rooms to offer year-round starting May 5. The intent of the endeavor is not just to open a business, but to share the Benders’ love of Fayetteville and the Central New York region with visitors from all walks of life.

“We’ve been to lots of bed and breakfasts and we prefer them — they are personal, quaint, and you really get to know the area you are visiting through the people you meet. It’s another experience from a hotel,” said Pamela Bender, who will focus her energy on the bed and breakfast while her husband Malcolm continues running Benders’ Home Services Inc., electrical, heating, air conditioning and plumbing company. “I want people to enjoy it; to sit on the porch and listen to the church bells, and get a sense of the house, the village and other nearby villages.”

The benders purchased the historic house, located at 303 E. Genesee St., in 2008, when it was not a single-family home but had been cut up into seven apartments. They have spent the past eight years remodeling and renovating the house, bringing it back to its original 1886 look. “We did about 80 percent of the renovations ourselves,” Pam said, including saving some of the original windows, doors and fireplaces.

The house has three bedrooms, two of which on the second floor will be rented out as part of the B&B, while the Benders live in the third room on the third floor. The first floor is a front parlor where breakfasts will be served, a living room and an open kitchen. There is also a large front porch with a swing. The back yard — which is currently empty — will eventually contain a two-story carriage barn designed to an 1886 look, as well as a small garden.

Pam said there will be no particular theme to her breakfasts, but she enjoys making omelets and French toast, and, particularly, ebelskivers — small, round Danish pancakes typically filled with jam, although modern recipes call for fillings of anything from fruit to cheese to chocolate to meat. “If I have a specialty, that’s going to be the one,” Pam said.

The Benders have never before run a bed and breakfast and are eager to open their doors.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Pam said. And, so far, the word of mouth around the village has been extremely positive and supportive, with local citizens excited to hear that a bed and breakfast is coming to town, she said. “I can’t believe how much support I am getting; it’s overwhelming.”

“A Sense of Place” will be the only bed and breakfast in the Fayetteville area. While there are currently some Airb&b rooms offered in the village, there are no authentic bed and breakfasts. Visitors wishing to spend a night in Fayetteville must stay at The Craftsman Inn, or at hotels or bed and breakfasts in other towns or in the city of Syracuse.

Rooms at “A Sense of Place” start at $125 per night, depending on the season, and include breakfast.

For more information or to make a reservation, call Pam Bender at 315-382-8737 or visit asenseofplacebb.com or find them on Facebook.

New B&B has amazing history

As Pam and Malcolm Bender worked to restore their house at 303 E. Genesee St. in Fayetteville over the past eight years, they have found many interesting historical facts and items. Pam, a history lover, conducted her own historical research and found numerous historic photos of the home to guide her and her husband in their work. Their major discovery was an inscription in the cellar’s original limestone foundation that read “L.B.S. ’86.”

 Bender’s research discovered the house was purchased by Platt Hiram Smith, who bought the property for his 23-year-old son, L. Bertrand Smith. The younger Smith and his wife, Ladye Love Hall, lived in the house for only three weeks before leaving. Ladye Love Hall died during childbirth, and her husband moved out soon thereafter.

Bender ultimately found that the Smith’s child, Ladye Katharine Smith, later married and had a daughter, Charlotte Cheney Crosby. In 2011, Crosby, invited by the Benders, returned to the place of her mother’s birth and for the first time saw her grandfather’s initials etched in stone.