Step Back In Time Love’s Is Modeled On A 100-Year-Old Queen Anne Home

Love can materialize in the most unusual places.

In this case, it’s amid towering pines and disquieting peacefulness. It feels like the middle of nowhere.

And, just as you’re beginning to wonder if you’re lost, you stumble across Love’s Victorian Bed and Breakfast in Deer Park, a proud and graceful Queen Anne home that rises from the ground like a beacon.

Instead of being incongruent, the setting is perfect for a not-too-far getaway from the troubles and worries of real life. It’s an escape.

Walk through the picket-fence gate to Bill and Leslie Love’s gabled house with the wraparound porch and step back in time. Porcelain dolls rest on needlepoint pillows, and French lace and dried flower arrangements are tucked into every nook and cranny. Angels peer down from wall hangings and delicate teacups wait patiently near the fireside.

It’s definitely for couples with romance in mind.

“We wanted to create something that would be like a second home to couples who share their time with us,” said Leslie Love, who decorated each room with painstaking detail. “We want them to feel loved and pampered.”

Love’s opened nearly nine years ago after a fire destroyed the family’s home. Amid the ashes, Bill Love found the plans for an 1886 Queen Anne that he had sent away for and saved. He began building the home in 1986, exactly 100 years after the plans were drawn.

Love salvaged parts and detail pieces from Spokane’s turn-of-thecentury homes. He used parts of his great-grandmother’s piano for two of the house’s fireplace mantles.

Love’s is open seven days a week and available for weddings and receptions. Its Turret Suite is the most luxurious, at $98 a night. You’ll find a balcony overlooking a pond, a gas fireplace and a feather bed so high you need a boost getting in.

The two other rooms, smaller but equally quaint, are $75. All have private baths. The small number of rooms make for a more intimate stay; you’re not running into other people at every turn.

The common rooms include a parlor, dining room and a music and game room - all with fireplaces. There’s also a fern-filled room with a hot tub and skylights that promise a moonlit sky on clear nights.

Bill and Leslie Love have spared no expense; the music room has a baby grand piano that guests can play or program with compact discs that play master compositions.

The couple serves a 9 a.m. candlelit breakfast that features (what else?) heart-shaped waffles touched with a hint of orange.

If you have a day trip in mind, Leslie Love is planning monthly teas and murder-mystery parties in the near future. When the weather is nice, Bill takes guests for rides in his two collector cars, a 1928 Model A and a 1939 bright pink Chevy.

Love’s is 15 minutes from Spokane. It’s easily found by taking U.S. Highway 395 north. Take the first right after Dennison-Chattaroy Road and travel about three miles. You won’t miss Love’s on the right.

Information and reservations: call 276-6939.