It’s a long commute, 2 1/2 hours, but Joanne Bielenda doesn’t really mind. She makes the trip to her part-time job only once a week and, besides, the drive is “very relaxing for me,” she says.
The Palatine resident, who works as a dental assistant for a Des Plaines dentist three days a week, steals away each weekend during the warmer months and moonlights as proprietor of a country inn in Galena.
Living in one town and running a bed and breakfast in another town 145 miles away wasn’t part of Joanne and husband Mike’s master plan. It’s just that things sort of worked out that way.
“We decided to open in Galena because we just loved it down there. It reminds us of New England. The people were friendly. . . . Up here (in Palatine), we could never have found a 150-year-old house with the character this one has,” said Joanne, 49.
The Bielendas bought the Mars Avenue Guest Home, a 14-room, two-story brick Georgian built circa 1855, in 1987. “For the first two years I had innkeepers,” Joanne said. She continued to work full time as a dental assistant.
But Joanne said the Bielendas were not able to keep adequate tabs on the B&B’s operation from Palatine. So Joanne quit her full-time dental job in 1990 and worked part time while refurbishing the B&B. She was readying it for its new debut, this time with a sole innkeeper on the premises-herself.
In 1991, the Mars Avenue Guest Home reopened. Joanne began working Monday through Wednesday for her current employer, Dr. Lawrence Wallace, in Des Plaines. On Wednesday night, she packs up and on Thursday morning she departs for Galena, where stays until late afternoon Sunday.
The inn, which is open only Thursday through Sunday morning, is situated in the historic district of Galena. It has two upstairs bedrooms with private baths; one is a suite. There is a third bedroom downstairs, which shares a bathroom with the house’s host, Joanne. Fees range from $70 to $90 per night and include breakfast.
Joanne said it’s easy to create a homey atmosphere in a place that is not actually her home, at least not 100 percent of the time. For one thing, she said, it’s the only property she and her husband own. In Palatine, their living quarters are a rented house on the premises of the Camelot Care Center, a residential facility for emotionally disabled teens where Mike is the administrator.
“We think of (the B&B) more as our home than we think of (the Camelot Center),” Joanne said. “(Galena’s) where my heart is.”
The Bielendas chose a country motif for the inn, in part to show off the pair’s country crafts. Mike, who occasionally spends a weekend at the B&B, does needlepoint, watercolors, basket making, wood working and tole painting. Sewing, cooking and cross-stitch are among Joanne’s avocations.
“Between us, we probably know about 100 crafts,” said Mike, who’s also charged with many of the remodeling chores.
Most of the furnishings have been rescued from relatives’ basements and from garage sales. “I call it `early attic’ furniture,” she said.
“She’s done so much with the house,” said Dr. Susan Klyber, a Cicero dentist who visited the B&B last year.
Because of the structure’s advanced age, some renovations were in order when the Bielendas assumed ownership. New plumbing and roofing have been added, and there’s central air conditioning. Next on the Bielendas’ list of improvements is a tuck-pointing project and a new furnace.
The rooms, said Joanne, are named after the Bielendas’ grandmothers, and photos of the couple’s ancestors decorate bedroom bureaus. Rather than a guest book, there is a diary in each room, with fresh, empty pages waiting for the current occupant’s imprint.
Visitors to the Mars home frequently don’t remain strangers. They congregate and visit in the living room, dining room and kitchen. “We’ll get together on a Saturday night and have discussions,” said Mike, 48.
The Bielendas’ B&B has attracted couples, groups of friends and even the occasional family (children over 12 are allowed).
“We were there a few times last year,” said Marilyn Fischer of Mt. Prospect. Fischer said what she liked best about the B&B is its homey feel. “I felt like this was my house,” she said.
Joanne said the atmosphere is easier to maintain since she enlisted the help of a substitute innkeeper two years ago. Lori Moyer, a school teacher from Davenport, summers in Galena while she works as a paramedic and sits in as innkeeper on the rare occasions that Joanne can’t be there.
Someday, Joanne said, the Bielendas may just pick up and move down the road to their cozy little country inn. “Yes, we’re working on it.”
In the meantime, Joanne keeps the couple’s Ford Aerostar van and old Chevy tuned up and ready for those hops down the highway. “We end up going through a car about every four years,” she said.
