Coolidge House was home of early nurseryman
Tucked into a stone wall, a steep, mossy stairway leads up to a stately Italianate Victorian — the Coolidge House.
Built in 1875 for the Rogue Valley's first commercial nursery owner, Orlando Coolidge, the house today is a bed and breakfast inn.
It was the first home constructed in a trio of houses known as the "Three Sisters" in Ashland. The houses stand watch over North Main Street.
Originally from Maine, Coolidge settled in Jackson County in 1851 and set up a nursery in Ashland in 1869.
The nursery was a great business success, according to a Jacksonville Museum History of Southern Oregon publication from 1884.
"He has introduced almost every variety of fruit, forest and ornamental trees, and also nearly every desirable variety of plants and flowers. To Mr.
Coolidge's untiring energy and industry, and to Mrs.
Coolidge's taste and love of flowers, is Southern Oregon indebted for very much of the beautiful and useful that enriches and adorns the country. Their home is a home of fruits and flowers, and is the admiration of every beholder," the publication states.
In later years, an incongruous bungalow porch was added to the front and the house was divided into upstairs and downstairs rentals.
Brad Parker - the brother of the current innkeeper, Jordan Parker — began a back-breaking renovation of the house in 1988. Among the changes, he pulled down overhead tiles to reveal 10-foot high ceilings and replaced the bungalow porch addition with an ornate Victorian-style porch and balcony that is a replica of the original porch.
The names of several of the bed and breakfast's rooms pay homage to the house's plant-oriented history.
The Rose Room has a clawfoot tub that is original to the house. A child's antique dress hanging on a hook and a bureau with serpentine-wave drawers add to the sense that one has stepped back in time.
The Garden Suite overlooks the garden courtyard, where breakfast is served when weather allows. A gnarled Concord grape vine planted in 1929 twines over a garden arbor.
At the back of the Coolidge House, The Sun Suite has a view up the steep Ashland Creek corridor to Mt. Ashland.
In addition to other rooms in the house itself, the inn features the separate Grape Arbor Cottage in the courtyard, complete with kitchenette, full living room, bedroom and private patio.
The Coolidge House remains as a reminder of Orlando Coolidge's influence in early Ashland. But his influence also can be seen in Rogue Valley orchards and gardens.
"We still enjoy many of the fruits he introduced to the valley," Jordan Parker said.
For more information on the Coolidge House Bed & Breakfast, visit www.coolidgehouse.com or call 482-4721 or (800) 655-5522.
Staff writer Vickie Aldous can be reached at 479-8199 or vlaldous@yahoo.com.
