BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. – The Harvest Barn Inn, located at 16 Web Terrace in Bellows Falls, recently celebrated the arrival of new inn owners Kaelan James Yen Smith and Blessing Yen Smith, who recently arrived in Bellows Falls from California. The couple has been married since 2017, and officially took over ownership of the inn on Aug. 15.
“We took over that Monday and didn’t even close the doors for a night,” Kaelan said. “There actually was a guest who stayed overnight during the transition, so she went to bed with one set of innkeepers and woke up with another!”
Blessing is from Southern California and Kaelan from a small town in Northern California, and they met in Los Angeles a 12 years ago. Kaelan attended Boston University before moving to Los Angeles, so he was already familiar with New England.
“We’ve spent the last five years or so thinking about leaving California for several reasons connected to living more sustainably,” Blessing added. “Sustainability from both an ecological and lifestyle perspective. But until the pandemic, we never really imagined leaving California. After Covid, we slowed down and thought more holistically about our lives.”
Their decision to move was not made quickly, but in the spring of 2001, they decided to leave their jobs and sell their house. After searching various areas around the country – Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, North Carolina – they started searching around New England and found their way to Vermont.
“After a friend randomly sent us a listing for a big farmhouse in Vermont on 50 acres, it got us searching all around New England, but Vermont kept pulling on our heart strings. Then Kaelan came across a listing for the Harvest Barn Inn at www.InnShopper.com and it seemed too good to be true… a gorgeous old house on 10 acres overlooking the Connecticut River. It was also a business that had been run successfully for over 30 years.”
Kaelan and Blessing thought that if they were to purchase the inn, they wouldn’t have to look for new jobs because the house and the land would be the new job. All of a sudden, the thought of running the inn, hosting guests, getting the garden back up and running excited them.
“Kaelan made a visit to Bellows Falls last spring and absolutely fell in love with not just the inn, but the whole village,” Blessing added. “Joining such diverse businesses as Wunderbar, Rockingham Roasters, Moon Dog Café, The Flatiron Coop, the Opera House, Joy Wah, Windham Antiques Center, Big Red Barn and Halladay’s Flowers, plus having the Amtrack running from downtown straight to New York’s Penn Station… we knew right away that this was the place for us!”
Despite plenty of updates over the years, the house is 130 years old, so there are plans to refresh the bathrooms, add some solar panels to the roof and also work towards growing and locally sourcing all the food they serve.
“Rich and Ellen Sager did an absolutely wonderful job running the inn over the last five-plus years, so our first priority is to live up to the standard that they set with their hospitality and cooking. Additionally, there are so many incredible farms, dairies, cideries, sugar houses, wineries, and roasteries close by that we should be able to get everything we could ever possibly want without traveling more than 25 miles from Bellows Falls.
“You can’t beat our view of the Connecticut River and we have our own mountain in our backyard. You can literally walk through our orchard, down past our pond, take the trail across our creek, and hike up into the forest to see the maples and the oaks change colors during foliage season.” To learn more about Harvest Barn Inn, please visit www.harvestbarninn.com.