The Blueberry Inn

The building that is now the Blueberry Inn was built beginning in 1905 with subsequent additions ending as the present structure. The following is a quote from a taped interview with Ruth Carver: "The house started out as a two-room structure that housed an old man and his horse. Then Charlie Hyde moved in, made a hallway, and added more rooms. The house was then sold to a Rod Stevenson." The Carver Family purchased the building in 1916, and this family owned it until 1995 when it was sold to me, Myra Jeanfreau, to be used as a bed and breakfast. For a long time this building was a rooming house with tenants being workmen in the lumber and railroad industries. The long footed bathtub in the main bathrooms is supposed to have been the first indoor bathtub in Poplarville and is extra long because it was designed to be a men's tub. It was originally in a communal bathroom that was previously located at the rear of the building.

I named the bed and breakfast "The Blueberry Inn" as Poplarville is the Blueberry Capitol of Mississippi and I saw it fitting to do so. My sister Monica Van Zandt, made and painted the carved sign over the entrance as a Christmas gift. The first guests were received in December of 1997 and two rooms were available at the time. Work continued on the property with the help of various carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and other tradesmen while I worked full time as a Registered Nurse at St. Tammany Hospital in Covington, Louisiana. The work progressed somewhat slowly as I tried to keep the house as original as possible. Most of the door frames, doors, mantles, and the staircase had many coats of paint and the wood had been stained black by coal burning fireplaces. Thanks to a paint stripping recipe found in a dear friend's mother's cookbook, I was able to strip most of the wood of all of the coatings and stains down to a condition where it would accept finish and protective coatings. This allowed the original peg and glue construction and the beautiful wood graining to be revealed in order to be appreciated and enjoyed.

The glass blocks in the large bathroom were salvaged from an old building in Lumberton Ms. and used for one of the shower walls and the window. The dining room has padded fabric walls, a decorative treatment popular in the early 1900's. The dining room furniture was manufactured by the Brown Company in 1910 and is one of two produced at the time. It has a patent number and is made of mahogany and rose wood, with the table and buffet ornamentation having been hand carved. The stained glass windows in the kitchen along with the ones in the upstairs front windows are from old church buildings. The kitchen was custom-built built in place by a local carpenter, Greg Herndon assisted by Blake Breeland. They also completed many of the other major renovations required to get the inn to its current configuration. A substantial amount of the interior decorating was carried out by Claire Smith, my sister-in-law.

Hurricane Katrina damaged the two large downstairs bedrooms on the south side of the inn and they have had to be completely redone, top to bottom.