The name
The wrens were here first.
Wrens have nested under the porch every summer since we bought the place. The old name never told anyone who we were. This one does. It is their house too.
Hart's Inn, 2017 to 2025 · The Wrenhouse, 2026 on
We bought the house in 2016 and spent eighteen months bringing it back. Jim built every piece of furniture inside. The wrens nest under the porch every summer, which is how the inn got its name.
The house went up in 1883 for a captain who ran granite schooners out of Stonington. It still has the original wide-plank floors, a wraparound porch, and a small breakfast room that looks out over the harbor.
When we found it, it had been a quiet bed and breakfast for years and needed everything. We spent eighteen months on it before a single guest came through the door.
Nell spent twenty years editing other people's books in the city. She manages the bookings, the correspondence, and the breakfast room, and she still reads more than anyone you will meet.
If you write to ask about a room, it is Nell who writes back. She will remember your name by the second morning.
Jim is a furniture maker. The beds, the shelves, the writing desks, the long breakfast table: he built all of it in the workshop out back, and he keeps building.
Nothing in The Wrenhouse came flat-packed in a box. If you like a piece in your room, ask him about it. He will tell you which tree it came from.
Wrens have nested under the porch every summer since we bought the place. The old name never told anyone who we were. This one does. It is their house too.