Transplants Cook Up Life With A View

Since November, Arleen Woodside and Jim Bersuch have owned and operated Harrison’s Osprey Inn, located on a bluff at the north end of this old logging town.

With hospitality experience, Arleen, a native of Kirkland, Wash., is well-prepared to run a bed and breakfast.

On the other hand, Jim, whose roots are in Montana, admits that “the only previous experience I had was in the military - making beds.”

“We argue about who does the better square corner,” Arleen said.

The two do all the work involved in running the inn, maintaining five bedrooms, all with private baths. There is an unfinished wing.

“I bake every morning that we have guests - fresh bread, rolls and muffins,” Arleen said.

“There’s never any left for me,” Jim pointed out.

The specialty of the house is a tart, fresh raspberry pudding that Arleen often serves as a third course to a breakfast that includes fruit, omelettes and her home-baked breads. Each morning at 6, they set up a coffee-and-juice bar for early risers.

From the old-fashioned, covered front porch, guests can sip their coffee, read the paper and enjoy the view of the mountains, water and marsh grass touched by the gold of late summer.

The view is the same from the front picture window and bedrooms.

Each of the latter has been named for a different species of bird. The previous owner, Dona Wolf, who started the bed and breakfast, named it the “Osprey” after the birds that nest on nearby pilings.

Urban sprawl in the Puget Sound area drove this couple to a tiny town in the Idaho Panhandle.

“I grew up in a small town, but now Kirkland, Redmond, Kent all run together,” Arleen said.

Jim, who had a position with a company that manufactured small rocket engines, decided that he, too, was ready for a change.

They began their search for their bed and breakfast in the small communities around Puget Sound. But one day their son-in-law called them about an ad for Harrison’s Osprey Inn he had seen posted on a Boeing Co. bulletin board. They felt it was an answer to a prayer.

Last winter, when snow and ice covered the hills and lake, a couple chose the inn for their quiet wedding ceremony and honeymoon.

The innkeepers have gotten up to fix breakfast for bass fishermen at 4:30 and served breakfast for their wives at 9:30.

Overnighters come by boat to tie up at the private dock, which is also available to guests for swimming and barbecues.

Visitors from as far away as Austria have found their way to the Osprey.

As for the future, Arleen and Jim want to continue improvements to the historic building that was built by a mill for a boarding house in 1915 and survived the fire of 1917 that destroyed most of Harrison’s business district.

The structure has seen duty as rooming house, hotel and hospital.

And how do Arleen and Jim like small town life? They both say they love it and have felt “…so welcome.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Jeri McCroskey, a freelance writer and antique collector, lives with her husband at Carlin Bay. Panhandle Pieces is shared among several North Idaho writers.