IN RURAL UPSHUR COUNTY, A CLASSY INN QUIETLY ATTRACTS VISITORS IN SEARCH OF COUNTRY

THE CHARLESTON SUNDAY GAZETTE-MAIL:
April 2, 2000
Byline: DOUGLAS IMBROGNO

BUCKHANNON - Country quiet is the first thing you notice while standing on the wraparound wooden porch on the second floor of Deerpark Country Inn's guest lodge.

Wind-rustled leaves and bushes. Birds crying in the sky. Bird song in the fields.

The ear strains to catch the usual background whirr of traffic or even a lone pickup crunching gravel. But the nearest local road is hidden over a hill. And the nearest busy road - U.S. 33 - is miles away.

This soothing Mountain State quietude comes courtesy of a cozy yet classy six-room country inn that wouldn't be out of place tucked away in the Loire Valley of France or Lake District of England.

Instead of Europe, Deerpark's guest lodge and a nearby two-story main lodge can be found on 110 acres of turkey- and deer-filled woodland four miles east of Buckhannon on Old Route 33.

No secret
Begun as a bed and breakfast 16 years ago by Liz and Patrick Haynes, this inn is no secret outside of West Virginia's borders, although it may be to some Mountain State residents. Travelers have come from all 50 states and more than a score of foreign countries. They nestle in well-appointed rooms in the guest lodge perched atop a small rise or in the nearby main lodge, which is built around a 19th century log cabin hauled in from Bulltown in Webster County and reassembled.

Visitors have been attracted to one of only two West Virginia establishments (the General Lewis Inn in Lewisburg is the other) invited to join the prestigious Independent Innkeepers Association. The exclusive worldwide association springs surprise inspections to see if you're really up to snuff. Deerpark won inclusion in 1998.

Liz Haynes had a successful modeling career in Washington, D.C., and later studied cuisine and worked as public relations director for The Pontevecchio restaurant in Georgetown. Pat Haynes, a West Virginia native known as "Doc" to friends, led a distinguished medical career, serving as an Air Force flight surgeon and director of medicine for the FAA and the State Department.

Returning to the Mountain State in the '80s, they launched Deerpark. It won a name for itself with such amenities as twin wraparound porches; a big stone fireplace in the lodge's log-walled sitting room; artfully displayed Civil War mementoes and photographs; and the sort of king-size quilt-covered beds that weary urban dwellers dream about when ready to run screaming from office cubicles.

Small and intimate
While the inn can only sleep about a dozen people at most overnight, many big events, from corporate gatherings to weddings to reunions, have been held here. Each porch can seat 100 in nice weather, while wedding ceremonies have featured tents, tables and even a dance floor set up in the meadow. They have had as many 400 for outdoor receptions.

By summer's end, three new rooms will be added to the inn, but Deerpark won't grow much bigger than that, he added. "We want to keep the smallness and intimacy we've already developed."

They will need to abandon one operating principle, though. The inn's four rooms and two suites are all named after the West Virginia counties that touch Deerpark's home county of Upshur. Now, they've run out of adjacent counties.