A vacation doesn’t have to involve going somewhere far away—look no further than the McDowell-Nearing Bed and Breakfast right here in Muncie.
It’s hard to imagine a time when Tillotson Avenue had two lanes, Scheumann Stadium was a horse farm, and Ball State University was just a teacher’s college. But Jane McDowell remembers. When she was 10 years old, she lived along Tillotson with her parents and two siblings in a house built after World War II. When Jane and her siblings went away for college, her parents stayed in Muncie. But Jane couldn’t stay away for long.
“I warn people that Muncie’s a little bit like a black hole,” she says. “It sucks you back.”
Jane was the only one of her siblings to return to Muncie, so when her parents went into assisted living in 2005, the responsibility of selling the house fell on her. The for-sale sign had been in the yard for 10 months when Jane drove past the house, feeling frantic. She didn’t want the house to be torn down or used for student rentals. She wanted a change in her life. Then, a thought popped into her head. She could live in the house and make it a bed and breakfast.
Jane says that when many people plan to open a bed and breakfast, they first look at a location that will bring in a lot of visitors. In Jane’s case, it was the house that came first. The process of opening the McDowell-Nearing House Bed and Breakfast began, but it wasn’t easy. It took two years and lots of paperwork, and the fight to get it opened is what allowed Jane’s passion to grow. Once she convinced the city that the bed and breakfast was worthwhile, she got to work, starting by hiring a general contractor and an architect to add on to the house and update it.
Jane learned how to be an innkeeper in a variety of ways, one of which was through using chat rooms to talk with other innkeepers. She learned how to do basic maintenance repairs to the home, taught herself web design, watched YouTube videos on how to scramble eggs (which she gets fresh from a friend’s farm), and discovered the best method of getting makeup out of white towels. She’s earned the reputation from her guests of having thought of everything, evident from their glowing reviews online.
Jane pays attention to the details. For example, she’s left the dressers in each room bare instead of filling the space with decorations, allowing guests to unpack and set out their own belongings.
“Every bed and breakfast is unique in and of itself because it takes on the personality of the people who run it,” Jane says.
When the B&B opened in November 2007, Jane welcomed her first guests as they entered, which she does for each person who comes to stay. But her first guests were unique. They weren’t from Indiana—or even the country. They came from Paris with a box of candy in hand for Jane. The animators were in town collaborating with Jim Davis on Garfield projects, such as Garfield: The Movie. Now, they try to visit about once a year.
Upon entering, guests take in a painting of Garfield and Odie, a Jim Davis original, that hangs in the hallway. To the left is a cozy living area with a TV, where guests can relax or read books from the room across the hall. Jane encourages guests to take a book with them if they didn’t have time to finish it during their stay.
In the room with the library, two maps hang on the wall, one for the United States and one for the world. Guests are able to place pins marking where they came from.
Guests can eat a home-cooked breakfast, like an omelet or pancakes with bacon, while gazing out a large window in the breakfast room to a view of Tillotson Avenue. Muffins, fruit, yogurt, and cold cereal are also available. The windowsill is lined with plants, including some rubber trees, and Jane credits the light that streams in to keeping them alive. Ball jars sit on the kitchen counter. Guests can put their leftovers in a mini fridge and help themselves to water, tea, soda, and coffee at any time.
Upstairs are the four rooms to choose from. Each is named after a neighborhood in Muncie—Minnetrista, Morningside, Sunset Knoll, and Orchard Lawn.
“It was my job to pick out all the different color schemes for all the rooms,” Jane says. “And I worked on that probably as hard as I’ve worked on anything since I passed my medical boards to practice medicine.”
The Minnetrista room is most popular and is common for those looking for a romantic getaway. It includes a jetted tub for two beneath a chandelier. The room has a southwestern feel, decorated with a Navajo sand painting, oak furniture, and a queen bed with a maroon comforter.
For individual guests, the Orchard Lawn room is ideal, coming at a cheaper rate than the other three rooms. Equipped with white wicker furniture and pale blue walls, this room also includes a desk perfect for solo guests with work to do.
In the Morningside room, a king bed is enveloped in the light that pours in from windows to the south and east.Guests can lounge in the recliner while reading a book, watching TV, or enjoying the electric fireplace.
In the Sunset Knoll room, which feels like a cabin in the woods, shades of green decorate the queen bed. Out the window guests can take in the scenery of white oak trees.
Each room has a journal for guests to write about their stay if they’d like. Guests come from all over, ranging from Ball State parents, to people here on business, to couples from around the state looking for a romantic weekend away. Summer is the busiest season, bringing in those who bike or participate in events like the Half Ironman, while winter sees a lull.
“It’s been fun for me because I get to sit home and meet all sorts of interesting people, with all sorts of different stories,” she says.
Jane will be retiring and closing the bed and breakfast at the end of September 2019, but she’s excited for the guests she’ll meet in the remaining time.
“I think it’s better to retire when you’re not at your wits end and you’re not burned out,” she says. “I’m looking forward to continuing this for the next seven months.”
The McDowell-Nearing House Bed and Breakfast is located at 2005 North Tillotson Avenue. For more information, click here.
