SCHROEPPEL, NY – Local bed and breakfast owner Anne Hutchins always wanted to be the proprietor of a place like River Edge Mansion and in 2007 she and her husband Steve moved into the historic Schroeppel homestead to do just that.
“I’m from Berlin and Steve is from Hopkinton Mass., where the Boston Marathon starts,” Anne said. “A lot of people here know him because he sells rubber band shooters and old-fashioned soda from the soda wagon during Farmers Market nights in Oswego and Mexico, and at Harborfest.”
Steve is also the deputy supervisor for the town of Schroeppel.
In addition to running the B&B, Anne works for the Upper New York Conference Office of the United Methodist Church.
“We originally looked at a place in Pulaski,” Anne said. But the couple settled on the historic George Casper von Schroeppel home at 1 County Route 10, in the town of Schroeppel.
Schroeppel, a tea trader, built the stately Greek Revival style home on the Oneida River in 1818 for his wife and four children. It has since been named a Phoenix/Schroeppel Designated Landmark and is currently listed on the National Register of Historic places.
The 4,224 square foot mansion features an exterior first and second floor portico which are supported by four columns topped by classic Greek ornamental scroll details.
The interior rooms are a comfortable collection of period and period-like pieces. Downstairs there are several intimate furniture groupings highlighted by exquisite 18th century moldings, wallpaper, wood floors, tin and wood inlaid ceilings, panel doors, and five fireplaces throughout the mansion.
Each of the upstairs guest rooms was named for local major rivers: The Oneida, The Seneca and The Oswego. A smaller room, used occasionally, is affectionately referred to as The Onondaga.
Along with luxurious rooms, guests at the mansion are treated to breakfast, and dinners are available.
“This was a little bit of an atypical weekend,” Anne said Sunday evening over a cup of coffee.
It seems the overwhelming hospitality of the owners includes a very serious effort to cater to guests with sensitive digestive needs.
“We had seven guests Friday night and eight Saturday. Among them was a vegan, her husband who ate no dairy or eggs, someone who ate no eggs, and another who was gluten free. So, I baked vegan – with no eggs – but used lots of bananas. For breakfast I made tofu scramble for the vegan, and husband who doesn’t eat eggs – only to find out he can’t eat tofu!”
The next morning breakfast included vegan waffles using cashew butter. “I belong to the Mexico co-op where I got some ground cashews so I made ground cashew butter,” she said. “When I learned my guests last night didn’t eat eggs I was delighted that I had these cashew waffles.”
“This morning at breakfast he had a bite to his mouth and we were talking about how delicious they were when I told him the ingredients and he dropped his fork and said, ‘Bananas, I can’t eat bananas!'”
Fortunately Anne had also prepared a huge gluten-free apple crisp so the weekend’s breakfasts were each a digestive success.
In addition to nightly guests, the B&B also hosts intimate dinners for as many as 35 people.
They recently had 8-time Olympic medalist and member of the US Swim Team Jason Lezak as an overnight guest and held a dinner for him sponsored by the Mexico swim team.
River Edge Mansion is also the perfect backdrop for weddings, including the most recent – a summer wedding party of 120 in the garden, with the bride and groom taking their vows along the Oneida River’s edge.
The proprietor notes that many happy couples have returned to the mansion to renew vows made on site years before.
The couple – who are members of the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce – have also hosted the Chamber’s Business After-hours at the mansion.
To top off his many hats, Steve also wears that of a licensed charter boat captain and offers Erie Canal dinner cruises that depart and return guests to the boat dock alongside the mansion.
Anne takes pride in having met people who have lived in the house going back to 1955.
“We had an open house and an elderly couple came and told us they lived in an upstairs apartment when they were first married in 1955,” Anne said.
She said they also met one of the home’s former owners, Greg Story, who did some major renovations to the mansion in the 1970s.
“The mailman told us they took up all of the floorboards, numbered them, then sanded them and put them back,” Anne said. “The Story’s came and stayed a night, it was his surprise for his wife.”
In the seven years since the Hutchins’ moved in they have painted twice, added a master bathroom to the first floor bedroom, and in the kitchen installed a set of double ovens – incorporating a door they found in the attic as a side-piece to the cabinet.
For more information and photos of the mansion and some of the Hutchins’ guests, visit their Facebook page: River Edge Mansion Bed & Breakfast.
To make reservations, call Anne or Steve at 315-695-3021 or visit their website http://www.riveredgemansion.com/
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