As my wife, Pepper, and I were driving back from a visit to Wallowa County in July of 2004, Pepper surprised the heck out of me by saying simply, Lets move there. After I had recovered from my initial shock long enough to say a few intelligible words, such as, Gee, Honey, thats a big decision, Pepper and I began to explore the pros and cons of pulling up roots from Talent in the Rogue Valley, a place our family had called home for a quarter century, and embarking on a new adventure in a spectacular, remote region of Oregon.

With the youngest of our four kids on her way to college and the other three already living on their own, we recognized that this was a good time to make such a big move if we wanted to. By the time we arrived back in Talent, we had made a two-year plan to sell our house and buy another one in Wallowa County. Our fledgling idea included the prospect of opening a bed & breakfast, if only we could find the right house and location.

In May of 2005, as we were getting ready to list our house, Pepper, who was a paramedic at the time, told a few of her co-workers about our intention to sell. A young nurse named Daniel asked if he could see it, and the following afternoon, Daniel and his wife Alicia came to have a look. They made an offer the next morning, and Pepper and I accepted.

Never one to let moss grow on her feet, Pepper zoomed back up to Wallowa County to look at real estate, and she found a farmhouse on five acres that she was very excited about. Two weeks later, I went up by myself to see that property, but I also asked Claresse OConnor, our realtor, to show me some others for comparison, and our little tour included a house in Joseph that had come on the market after Peppers visit. Some old-timers know this house as The McCully Mansion. Many refer to it as The Mayors House, because three mayors of Joseph have lived in it. But most locals still call it The Dawson House, because two generations of Dawsons owned it, from 1938 until 2005.

When I walked through the house and the property, I had the same feeling that Daniel and Alicia must have had when they stepped into our house in Talent: that somehow this was meant to be. I called Pepper and told her that I thought this house was in a better location for a bed & breakfast than the farmhouse and that it would cost much less to remodel. I assured her that the property also included a great old barn and more than an acre bordering the Wallowa River.

Claresse sent pictures to Pepper, and I asked Pepper to take a leap of faith and let me make an offer right away, because I was worried that if we waited, the house might disappear from the market by Memorial Day. God bless my wife for being a decisive woman, because she said yes, and Malcolm and Jean Dawson accepted our offer that weekend.

By early July, we owned the house, and two weeks later, the Joseph City Council eased our anxiety considerably by approving our request for a conditional use permit to establish a bed & breakfast. We decided to call it Belle Peppers. As someone who has always loved to play with words, I came up with the name partly as an homage to my lovely wife, partly as a tribute to a house that has a stately Southern grace, and partly to hint at food.

We opened for business on Valentines Day in 2006, and we have hosted hundreds of guests each year since then. In nearly every instance, we can honestly say that playing host has been our pleasure and privilege. Pepper has especially enjoyed taking care of the garden, raising chickens, milking goats, and minding donkeys. (I will add that I probably minded the donkeys a bit more than she did.) Pepper can also take pride in having established Belle Peppers as the first certified Green B&B in Oregon in 2007, and in helping the Oregon Bed & Breakfast Guild to develop its own Green B&B program.

Now after seven years in business, my brave wife and I have decided that we are ready for new adventures. So we are putting our house on the market, and we are hoping to purchase a modest home on small acreage in another part of the county. We have loved our time as hosts of a bed & breakfast, and we expect that very soon, someone will walk through our front door with the feeling that this elegant home of ours was meant to be their home as well.

John McColgan writes from what is still his home in Joseph.