Courtesy / James Place Inn Bed & Breakfast
New innkeepers Mary Ann and Bill Hinko jumped into peak operations and successfully navigated a learning curve.
Updated: October 21, 2019
Historic Freeport B&B attracts newbie innkeepers
Courtesy / James Place Inn Bed & Breakfast
The James Place Inn Bed & Breakfast is a Victorian-style home built around 1890 and converted into a lodging in the 1990s. It was acquired in June by a Virginia couple new to innkeeping.
An 1890s Freeport home that was converted into a bed-and-breakfast in the 1990s has found new owners who are enthusiastically embracing the innkeeper lifestyle for the first time.
Bill and Mary Ann Hinko bought the James Place Inn Bed & Breakfast, at 11 Holbrook St., from Tori and Robin Baron. John McCarthy of Legacy Properties Sotheby's International Realty brokered the transaction.
The price was “just north of $1 million,” said Bill Hinko.
The Hinkos financed the purchase through a financing mechanism called “ROBS” or “rollover for business startups.” The mechanism is becoming increasingly prevalent and allows retirement account holders to roll money into a business without paying early withdrawal penalties or taxes.
“For us, it was s a personal choice,” said Hinko, who has a long career in finance. “We didn’t want to have a loan. The only hurdle with this is, you have to get really comfortable with the fact that you’re investing in yourself, because it’s your 401(k) money. That’s why we did probably more due diligence than maybe others do, because it was on us. It’s treated us well so far.”
Freeport cachet
The Hinkos moved to Maine from Virginia, where Mary Ann was an elementary school teacher and Bill worked in finance for the same company for 31 years before retiring.
They first visited Maine on their honeymoon, and returned to the state nearly every year after that.
About a year ago, they began discussing pre-retirement plans. An ad in Down East magazine, for a Maine inn for sale, inspired them to think about innkeeping as their second act.
They didn’t necessarily have in Maine in mind. Last fall, they took an aspiring innkeepers course in Pennsylvania. They looked at dozens of inns in Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont, then in Maine, where they connected with McCarthy and looked in places like Camden, Rockland and Ogunquit.
Then McCarthy showed them the Freeport inn. It met the parameters they had in mind. For starters, they didn’t want an inn that had a restaurant attached to it.
“We didn’t have any innkeeping experience, so to put a restaurant on top of that would have been too much,” said Bill Hinko.
They didn’t want it to be too big, so the James Place Inn’s seven rooms seemed about right.
Location was paramount.
“Coming from a finance background, I looked at the numbers and what we were investing versus what we could get back on that,” he said. “Freeport’s a nice market because it’s open almost year-round” thanks to the town’s shopping cachet, with L.L. Bean as an anchor, and its location on busy Route 1.
“The previous owners were extraordinarily personable and made it real easy to want to do business with them,” he added.
Shoe manufacturer
James Place Inn is a restored Victorian-style home built around 1890, on a quiet side street one block from L.L. Bean, according to its website.
Amenities include private baths and flat-screen TVs with DVDs and cable in every room. Three rooms have Jacuzzi tubs; another has a fireplace and private deck.
The Hinkos are researching the house’s history.
“But we believe it to be a ‘Mallett House,’” they wrote on the website. “E.B. Mallett was a local businessman and shoe manufacturer with an extensive local workforce that needed housing; many of these types of houses were built in Freeport and only a few remain standing today.”
The house changed hands a number of times. By the 1990s, it suffered from neglect and was slated for demolition when a couple named Darcy and Bill James bought the property in 1994 and converted the house into a bed-and-breakfast.
“They took the existing structure down to the studs and lived in a room while they remodeled it,” the Hinkos wrote. “All the electrical and plumbing was redone to code and the original hardwood flooring was preserved throughout the inn, including the rectangular-style nails.”
The staircase in the front hall, wood trim, window casings and exterior structure are original. During the renovation, the Jameses added owners’ quarters at the back of the property.
EV charging station
In September 2006 Tori and Robin Baron bought the property and added touches like a marble-tiled shower.
Courtesy / James Place Inn Bed & Breakfast
Guest rooms feature a quaint ambience and original details like wide-plank floors.
The inn was in turnkey condition when the Hinkos bought it. They’ve added some amenities, such as a water softener system. Plans included installing an electric vehicle charging station for their own and their guests’ use. The Hinkos own a Tesla.
“We’re looking at ramping up marketing and adding on services,” Hinko said, adding that McCarthy has suggested they connect with other innkeepers along the coast to create package deals. They’d also like to set up a package deal for teachers.
The couple jumped into their new career during the inn’s peak operations in June. They trained with the sellers for about a week and inherited two staffers.
“Since they’ve been here a while, they’ve helped us with questions that we didn’t know the answers to,” he said.
They navigated the learning curve pretty quickly.
“We joke about that with guests,” Hinko said. “We purchased the property June 17. We were open that night and on the weekend we were full. It took me three hours just to make breakfast. Today it’s much easier.”
They love the experience.
“We underestimated how rewarding it would be, how much fun we would have meeting new people,” he said.
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Anonymous
October 27, 2019
Congratulations Bill and Mary Ann! We are so happy for you and for the way you have approached the next chapter of your lives. We also are very grateful for the fantastic location and community you have selected to put down roots. Freeport offers so much and our family is fortunate to add this historic city to our travel map.
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