Courtesy / Swan Agency Real Estate
The Yellow House Bed & Breakfast, in a house dating back to 1872, sold for $1.325 million to the owners of a popular Bar Harbor eatery.
Updated: February 8, 2021
New owners of vintage Bar Harbor B&B to add wellness retreat
Courtesy / Swan Agency Real Estate
Jeff and Jena Young, owners of two popular Bar Harbor eateries, bought another Bar Harbor property, the Yellow House Bed & Breakfast, to operate as an inn but also add wellness retreats.
The new owners of an old bed-and-breakfast in Bar Harbor view it not only as a beautiful innkeeping opportunity but a chance to add a vacation-based wellness and personal development retreat.
Jeff and Jena Young bought the Yellow House Bed & Breakfast from Pat and Chris Coston for $1.325 million.
Pat Coston, who is also a broker with Swan Agency Real Estate's Hospitality Brokerage, represented herself and her husband in the deal. Kimberly Swan, also with Swan Agency Real Estate's Hospitality Brokerage, represented the Youngs, who also own two popular downtown eateries — Side Street Cafe and Thrive Juice Bar & Kitchen.
The deal closed Dec. 30.
The inn, comprising seven rooms on one acre, has the unusual address of 15 The Field. “The Field” is an enclave surrounded by trees and tucked behind the downtown’s busy Main Street within a few hundred feet of the waterfront. The Yellow House is one of three small inns that face each other in The Field, each occupying a 19th-century former single-family “summer cottage” built during Bar Harbor’s so-called “Golden Age.”
Moving houses
The Yellow House was built as a single-family home in 1872 in a different Bar Harbor location and moved to the present location sometime before 1885, according to the inn’s website.
“The moving of houses is today a formidable task, but surprisingly common in Bar Harbor in the late 1800s,” the website says. “One summer socialite even moved her house five times, depending on which neighbor she wanted to spend the summer by.”
It was owned by the Opdycke family from 1936 to the 1990s, then bought and converted to a bed-and-breakfast by Hélène Harton and Roy Kassindorf who, around the same time, also bought a neighboring inn called Ullikana in the Field, which they sold in 2017.
Rocking on the porch
Chris Coston is originally from Seal Harbor. Pat first visited Mount Desert Island in 1974. Together, they bought, operated and sold successive Bar Harbor businesses, starting with a restaurant in the 1980s, then a hotel and lastly the Yellow House, which they bought in 2012 from Harton and Kassindorf. During that time, Pat also became a broker with the Swan Agency Sotheby's International Realty.
Courtesy / Yellow House Bed & Breakfast
Pat and Chris Coston.
They performed renovations, including the conversion of the owner’s quarters into a seventh guest room, stripping the wallpaper and gradually changing the décor but within the character of the house.
“We didn’t want anything to change the feel of the house,” said Pat Coston.
The structure’s signature feature is a wraparound porch.
“It’s lined with rockers and it’s a wonderful place to sit outside,” she said. “We served breakfast at the far end. When guests returned from the park, that’s where they’d head, rocking, reading, enjoying wine and talking.”
The couple operated the inn seasonally. They listed it last May.
“We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of interest,” she said. Prospective local buyers were mainly interested in running it as an inn; prospective out-of-state buyers mainly considered turning it back to a single-family home.
The time was right to sell after spending decades in hospitality, she said.
The couple operated the inn in 2020 from July through October.
“During COVID, I feel like Bar Harbor experienced a younger age group,” Coston said. “That’s who was traveling. They were really into hiking and wanted to explore everything. We had seniors, but we didn’t have them in the numbers we usually did.”
Coston said she and her husband considered themselves the stewards of the vintage building.
“We’re there to enhance the building and share the experience with others,” she said. “We’re taking care of it for a period of time. And then you just have to believe that someone will come along and enhance it further.”
Wellness retreat
Those someones were Jena Young and her husband Jeff.
Courtesy / Swan Agency Real Estate
The Yellow House, thought to be Bar Harbor’s second-oldest house, is located in something of an oasis tucked behind the busy downtown near the waterfront.
Jena Young always had family in the area and attended local summer camps as a child. In college, she continued to visit Bar Harbor in the summer, working at a local pub.
“It was always my home away from home,” she said.
After graduation from college, she met Jeff, got a job at a Bar Harbor hotel and settled down.
In 2009, the couple opened the Side Street Café on a downtown side street where other restaurants had cropped up over the years.
Six years ago, they opened Thrive in a building next door.
As the businesses grew, the Youngs built leadership teams to run operations. As the teams materialized, Jena began thinking about further entrepreneurial endeavors. She loves the restaurant and juice bar, she said, but what she really loved about building them was the experience of team development and creating memorable experiences for visitors.
“My main passion is in personal development and finding tools to live the happiest and best life I can and helping other people to do that,” she said.
When the inn became available, she said, she viewed it as an opportunity that was already well-functioning as an inn and could also incorporate her vision for a retreat.
“That’s the ultimate goal,” she said.
Her best friend from high school, Sara Bumgarder, is her partner in the endeavor.
“Our retreats are called Well + Wander — vacation-based retreats to share our beautiful region and a supportive space and group to do deeper personal work,” Young explained.
That includes activities such as hikes, art, yoga, meditation and workshops.
“We plan to explore these retreats as a supplement to the inn in the hope that they will grow and that we can connect with many people who want support in their personal growth and fun experiences,” Young continued.
After opening mid-May, the plan is to roll out the retreat for at least one week this year.
The inn will remain seasonal. Some reservations are already lined up.
Young said she knew the Yellow House was the venue she wanted for her plan. The inn is just a few blocks from their other businesses.
“We can’t be spread more thinly as far as distance,” she said. “We want to keep our focus in the downtown.”
The couple financed the purchase with a loan from First National Bank. Renovations will be funded out-of-pocket and performed gradually. Initially, that might include new landscaping, maybe adding a firepit; and fresh paint and new furnishings. Down the road, additional installations might include keypad doorlocks and new light fixtures.
“We don’t want to change anything that brings people back time and time again,” Young added. “Jeff and I are so excited the Costons built this beautiful little business, with so much character and authenticity. We want to carry that on, bring in modern touches in the décor and some of the amenities, but still keep that character.”
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