Belle of the Bends owners, from left, Dan, Mary and Jacob Lee stand in front of their Bed and Breakfast at 508 Klein St. (Meredith Spencer The Vicksburg Post)

[1/3/05] A California couple now owns Annabelle, continuing an influx of new ownership of bed-and-breakfast inns in Vicksburg’s Garden District.

The purchase is the third in the Oak Street area in the past 14 months, and a fourth home is listed for sale.

Annabelle, 501 Speed St., was bought in December by Carolyn Stephenson and her husband, Paul Caudillo, who have moved to Vicksburg from Los Angeles.

Belle of the Bends, 508 Klein St., was bought in April by Dan and Mary Lee, and Cedar Grove Mansion Inn & Restaurant, 2200 Oak St., was bought in October 2003 by Colleen Small.

The Corners Bed & Breakfast Inn, 601 Klein St., is for sale, said co-owner Cliff Whitney III.

“I wanted a gentler life than California affords,” said Stephenson, who is originally from Paris, Tenn. She said during the 24 years she lived on the West Coast she always knew she wanted to “come back home.” She was vice president of a company that produces TV infomercials shown nationwide.

“The hustle and bustle and the freeways I’ve been in marketing for several years and I had a bout with cancer, which I survived, thankfully,” she said. “And I just wanted to do something that I could be surrounded by beautiful things and nice people, and this seemed like the thing to do.”

Stephenson said she decided to buy the inn from owners George and Carolyn Mayer last summer and moved to Vicksburg a few weeks before the purchase became final. She said she became fast friends with the Mayers, whom she called the industry’s “gurus.”

“I moved in on a Friday, and Saturday morning I had 10 people for breakfast,” Stephenson said.

The Lees, who moved to Vicksburg from near Denver, said after their first eight months as Belle of the Bends’ owners they “absolutely love it.”

“What’s amazing to us is that Vicksburg’s a great place to be in this business,” Dan Lee said. “There are lots of people who come in here for a visit. It’s a good place for a couple of days because of the history.”

The Lees have added a Web site for the inn, now a favorite way for travelers to find historic accommodations.

“This is a beautiful neighborhood, especially with all these mansions,” Mary Lee said. “It’s really a pleasant place for people to come and relax and have a rejuvenating time and look out the window and see all these beautiful homes that are historic, so it provides a unique atmosphere for Vicksburg I think.”

The fifth bed-and breakfast inn in the Garden District is Flowerree, 2309 Pearl St., owned for decades by Mr. and Mrs. S.J. Tuminello.

Per-night room rates at the inns range from about $90 to about $260.

The neighborhood’s bed-and-breakfasts were built between 1852 and 1876 and are also tour homes. Most charge $6 for adults and $3 for children for tours.

The Garden District has about one-third of Vicksburg’s bed-and-breakfasts. The city’s about 15 such inns account for 108 of the city’s 1,755 hotel rooms, or about 6 percent.

“I think you’ll see revitalization” and “changes in how actively it’s marketed,” Small said of the influx of new ownership. Cedar Grove’s Web site has also been updated and its reservation system changed since she bought the inn, she said.

Also new to the neighborhood in the past two years is the restaurant Unique Impressions, 2420 Washington St. It is the neighborhood’s only restaurant that serves lunch, and it is also open at night.

About three months ago, the restaurant added a large yellow sign that faces southbound Washington Street traffic and makes clear that tourists are welcome, owner Brenda Love said. Since the sign went up, the part of the restaurant’s business accounted for by tourism has increased from about 15 percent to about 25 or 30 percent, she added.

“I hear a lot of tourists say that they’re not interested in eating on a (casino) boat per se,” Love said. “Once it catches their eye, they like eating in this-type building.”

The addition of the sign has also helped attract locals, Love said.

“Until they saw the sign, they didn’t know this was a restaurant,” Love said of some of her new local customers.

The restaurant’s per-person price range is from about $6 to about $21, Love said.