Suite Spot Need some R&R? Then checkout (and check into) Nonesuch Farm, Bangor’s one and ony B&B

Bangor is home to many treasures: The American Folk Festival summers on the waterfront. Stephen King keeps West Broadway lively. Heck, even Paul Bunyan has a place on Main Street.

But there’s one thing that’s never called the Queen City home: a bed and breakfast.

Sure, there are plenty of hotels, motels and rooming houses. But if you wanted the cozy, friendly experience of a B&B, the yummy popovers and blueberry jam, the llamas and roosters, then you had to go elsewhere. Until now.

Nonesuch Farm, a full-service B&B complete with fancy livestock, gourmet breakfast and a ghost – more on that later – recently opened on the Hudson Road. It’s the city’s first, and owners Jim and Mary Louis Davitt couldn’t be happier.

“We like to stay at B&Bs and Mary will take notes about what works and what doesn’t,” Jim Davitt said while giving a tour of the Agnes suite (each of the three rooms is named for the couple’s sheep – Agnes is the head ewe). “We like to ask ourselves, if we were here, what do we need?”

More important, the Davitts know what guests want. In the suite, a bucket full of local apples and Poland Spring water rests on a dresser, while the bathrooms are fully stocked with Tom’s of Maine toiletries. Cozy terrycloth bathrobes and slippers hang in the closets.

In the breakfast room, pottery by Rowantrees, Rackliffe and Monroe Salt Works graces the table, while thick bacon and sausage from Luce’s Meats tempt the palate. The couple also hope to serve eggs from their own laying hens before long.

“We try to pump Maine products wherever we go,” Mary said. “You discover [artisans and craftsmen] and you feel like you’ve got a really special thing.”

The Davitts have their own special thing going. There was never a question of where to live when they married in 2002 – she moved from Orono into Jim’s sprawling 1850s home on Six Mile Falls. When he and his late wife came here from the Washington, D.C., area more than a decade ago, the 30-acre farm became part of his identity here.

Mary, who teaches at University College, saw a bed and breakfast as a way for her to move into his house while making it her own.

“As soon as she moved in, the renovations started,” her son, Travers Kurr, joked. “Poor Jim.”

If his album of before-and-after photos is any indication, Jim, who is retired from University College, didn’t seem to mind. The couple updated the kitchen with stainless appliances, granite countertops and banks of cherry cabinets with the help of Orono designer Mary White and Old Town woodworker Ed Emerson. Faux finishes by Silver Tools highlight – rather than mask – the home’s original horsehair plaster and artist Sember Hall painted a wallpaper-like pattern in the living room.

But the renovations were just the beginning. Because no one had ever opened a bed and breakfast in Bangor, or even proposed the idea, city officials had no guidelines to follow.

“They were really the first to ask,” said Dan Wellington, the city’s code enforcement officer. “They’re an experiment in the sense that we’re working things out with them, and they couldn’t be working out any better.”

Wellington said there were challenges, including some confusing wastewater disposal rules, but he’s so pleased with the results, he’d like to see other people follow the Davitts’ model.

“It would be nice to see some old family farms reinvent themselves, give them a new life, rather than bulldoze them to the ground to make way for subdivisions,” Wellington said.

That was never an option for the Davitts. While they admit there’s more to owning a B&B than they initially thought (Mary is still getting used to living in a perpetually clean house), the rewards are worth it. They love the people they’ve met, and thanks to guests with vegan diets, gluten intolerance and other dietary restrictions, Mary has expanded her cooking repertoire.

As for the friendly ghost in the sleeping quarters? The couple’s children and their friends claim to have seen – or heard – her knocking about, but so far she hasn’t given any guests a fright. Jim Davitt isn’t sure who she was, but he’s happy to share his home with her.

After all, if Stephen King’s hometown is going to have a B&B, surely it should have a ghost.

Nonesuch Farm is located at 59 Hudson Road in Bangor. Rooms range from $85 to $118 a night. For information or reservations, call 942-3631 or visit www.bangorsfirstbedandbreakfast.com. Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.