They say “time flies when you’re having fun” and that old idiom couldn’t be more accurate. This February, we will have ten years under our belt as the Innkeepers of the historic Jacob Rohrbach Inn. During our tenure we have meet some incredible people, not just from the United States but from around the world. We’ve hosted guests from Canada to France, Australia to Ireland, Israel to Sweden, and many places in-between. This equals to over 15,000 guests, 6,700 beds made, 3,250 gallons of coffee, 11,500 scones and too many eggs to count!

Along the way we have made some wonderful friends. Some come every year to celebrate a birthday, anniversary, or for one of the many events happening in the area. Others return every couple of years for an extended stay to visit family and friends. We look forward to seeing them each and every visit, hearing their stories, catching up on their adventures and sharing family news.

We started planning renovations on day one and it seems we’re always working on some project big or small. We like to joke that our ‘TO DO” list is down to 50 pages instead of 100. It is amazing to look at photos and see all the changes and updates made to the Inn over the last ten years so we thought we would share some with you.

As soon as our first guests left after Valentines Day weekend in 2015, we closed the doors for six weeks to repaint the living room and dining room, and change all the furniture.

While we worked on the downstairs, renovations to the Clara Barton Suite began with removing a walk-thru closet, updating the bathroom, a fresh coat of paint and all new furniture.

The next year we tackled the Thomas Jackson Room. We removed the popcorn ceiling, wallpaper, and wall-to-wall carpet. After that we gutted and modernized the bathroom, refinished the original hardwood floor, built a brick hearth and gave it a new look fitting of “Old Stonewall”.

Over the next two years, we moved on to the Harpers Ferry Suite and the Antietam Room to paint, renovate the bathrooms and and update the furniture

In between all the updates inside the Inn, we made several big changes outside too. The color of the Inn changed, a large patio was added with upgrades to the porch, the old stone wall was rebuilt, and the parking lot was paved, not to mention all the landscaping and gardens.

One of the biggest modifications that we did was not only to the Inn but to the business. We turned the the private downstairs area into our own little store – the Antietam Mercantile Company.

During the 10 years of changes and updates happening to the Inn, of course things were changing in our own lives as well. Our two boys got married, so two daughters are now part of the family along with our first grandchild – Lily. We say “first”, because the second is due this summer! The other addition to the family came in the form of “four legs”, LIBBY.

It has been a wonderful experience being Innkeepers for the last decade and we want to thank everyone who joined us on our journey. We look forward to hosting you during our next ten years!