Pennsbury Inn now Wild Wisteria
When Brad Eck and his wife Cindy bought the Pennsbury Inn last year, it was the beginning of them living a long-time dream of owning a bed and breakfast. It was also the beginning of a lot of work to fix up the property on Route 1 and to change some previous negative reviews.
Brad Eck, who still works as an engineering manager for a video surveillance company, said he and his wife had wanted to buy a B&B for 27 years. They looked around at numerous possibilities but got beat out by other buyers until they came upon the Pennsbury Inn.
“That was the thing for us,” he said in a recent interview.
They made settlement on the property in March of 2019 and opened for business in April. At the same time, they began fixing up the exterior, redesigning the interior and decided to change the name.
There was wisteria growing untrimmed on a couple of arbors in the rear yard and Cindy Eck, he said, loves wisteria and she had commented that it was just growing wild. “That triggered the name,” Brad Eck said.
But he also said they needed to change the name because of some negative reviews the inn had gotten.
“The core reason was because of reputation,” he said. “There were two major issues going on online in reviews. … One of them was the noise from the road [Route 1] was bad and they got a lot of bad reviews from that.”
One of the first things they did was to replace the windows. “There’s no more road noise now,” he said.
The other thing, he said, was that there were improvements needed on the inside and that there were too many knick-knacks. The interior changes include redecorating so the interior no longer conveys the idea of an old Victorian house. The look the Ecks are going for now is that of an industrial farmhouse.
With changes in the look and feel of the house, and the desire to upgrade the reputation, came the formal rebranding and name change. They are now billing the B&B as Wild Wisteria BNB formerly Pennsbury Inn.
Eck also said owning and operating the house as a B&B isn’t the end of the dream. Brad and Cindy have the idea of opening a pastoral retreat where people can get away just to relax and tend to themselves. Specifically, he wants to have a place where people‚ including other B&B owners — can get away and be treated as guests.
“Our passion is investing in others,” he said, “investing in people. While we always had a dream for the B&B, we realized that it was a dream to invest in other people. We want a place where people can come to us so we can spend time with them, invest in their lives, to serve them.”
In the meantime, work continues on the exterior and interior of the house but the work has not interfered with or inconvenienced any of the guests, he said.
Standard room rates range from $145 to $250 per night depending on the room, but sometimes those rates go up and sometimes they come down.
For more information, visit, phone or write:
https://www.wildwisteriabnb.com
610-388-1435
info@wildwisteriabnb.com
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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