In Vermont: Keeping Up with Keeping Inns

The night it snowed in the Green Mountains, coming down so densely in places that vision ceased just in front of the head lamps on the car, an engineer with General Motors, a troubleshooter in the Chevrolet division, stopped off for the evening in one of those wonderful old Victorian inns in Vermont. The innkeeper was bearded, avuncular, inquisitive, fleshy, and given now and again to alcohol and nicotine. His wife sometimes fretted that he might be a heart in search of an attack. There was a cheery blaze in the fireplace.

The engineer, a soft-looking fellow named Jim, came from New Jersey, one of an elite 25 in the "field force." He had charge of all New England—Willy Loman with a wrench. He was here, in Bethel, to see about a problem at the Chevy dealership. He accepted a white wine.

The innkeeper, whose name was Lyle Wolf, was from Los Angeles. One of a growing number of novices in the trade, he had allowed romanticism to overtake him a couple of years ago, chased the ghost of Thornton Wilder across the continent, and set himself up as a country squire, the possessor of a first-edition mortgage—Bob Newhart with a plumber's helper. His wife's name was Barbara, and Barbara was saying, over wine, that she had a relative hurt in a Corvair.

Jim said that the Corvair was a little before his time, then sidestepped his interlocutors' curiosity about the trouble down at the local dealership. And what was it like to run an inn? Does it strain a marriage?

"Only when we're alone," said Lyle, "or with other people."

One was reminded of S.J. Perelman, who wrote: "Outside of a spring lamb trotting into a slaughterhouse, there is nothing in the animal kingdom as innocent and foredoomed as the new purchaser of a country place. The moment he scratches his signature on the deed, it is open season and no limit to the bag."

But what was wrong with the Chevys?

It was just an engineering question, said Jim. And how was the foundation on this old place?

"Not very good," said Lyle.

"Sound," said Barbara, playing Jim's game.

And what do the Wolfs think of the Bob Newhart show, the television series about a proprietor of a Vermont inn?

"I can't stand his stuttering," said

Lyle. "He never greets a guest," said Barbara. "It's unrealistic," said Lyle.

"He never has to mow a lawn or unclog a toilet."

Hours passed, dinner passed, Jim went to bed, and Lyle, over brandy, reflected on his lot. He had been a high school teacher in California, a respected one, and he had enjoyed the classroom but abhorred the system, for reasons he did not expand. He quit after 24 years and withdrew $40,000 from his state teachers' retirement account. He paid $103,000 for the inn, called Greenhurst. He was 54 years old. Barbara, a registered nurse, was 44. Greenhurst was 90. Bethel was 203.

The first month they were open, January 1982, they took in $80.