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Fairhope A large, handsome house facing Mobile Bay. Three guest rooms and two cottage suites that offer the utmost in comfort. Two living rooms, a sitting room and an enclosed sunporch awash in wicker. Two outdoor terraces and a lush yard sloping to the bay. A sandy beach and a long, well-equipped pier used for fishing or crabbing, socializing and elaborate breakfasts. Gregarious owners who are the consummate hosts. You get all this and more at Bay Breeze, the family home of Becky Jones, a Fairhope native who retired after 37 years of teaching, and her husband Bill, a city councilman and pharmacy manager at the local hospital. Becky grew up in the house, which started as four rooms across the street from a dairy farm and underwent a lot of growth in 43 years. The Joneses built three cottages for elderly parents and relatives at the front of the property (they call it the back, since the house is oriented toward the bay and what they call their front yard). In 1991, with all but one cottage unoccupied, they opened a B&B. They added another a year later in her mother’s house, now the Church Street Inn in uptown Fairhope. "You’ve got five minutes to be company and then you’re family," Becky advises arriving guests. She puts them up nicely in the two cottages or in bedrooms in a section of the stucco house facing toward the street. Our quarters in the Magnolia Room came with a queensize iron and brass bed and an ante-room with a sitting area and a day bed. The bed was quilted and triple-sheeted, the lamps were antiques and the appointments included family portraits and heirlooms dating back five generations. Nothing was particularly fancy – "that’s not the Fairhope way," says Becky – but everything was pleasant and supremely comfortable. Not that we spent much time in our room, as Becky quickly sent us off to meet other guests on the pier. No ordinary pier, theirs. Besides the predictable boat docks and lounge decks, it has a massive, semi-enclosed mid-section that’s a veritable kitchen, pantry, dining and living area, complete with TV and piped-in music. Here the Joneses prepare and serve drinks, hors d’oeuvres, occasional dinners and their weekend tradition, "breakfast on the pier." Shrimp boats passed in the distance and a menagerie of ducks quacked and fish jumped up close for handouts as the hosts prepared their specialty crab omelets, served with sliced tomatoes, honeydew melon, hash browns, toasted french bread and enough orange juice and coffee to sink a ship. Some guests spend most of their stay on the pier, and few would question why. (251) 928-8976 or (866) 928-8976. Fax (251) 928-0360. For more information: www.bbonline.com/al/baybreeze/ Three rooms and two cottage suites with private baths. Doubles, $149 to $179. No children. No smoking. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in the Southeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2000. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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