‘The Inn’ opens at Alaska Garden Gate Bed and Breakfast

PALMER — Karen Harris is a glass half-full kind of person.

When the section of Trunk Road from the Parks Highway to Palmer-Wasilla Highway was upgraded about six years ago, it carved off three-acres from Alaska Garden Gate Bed and Breakfast’s 10-acre parcel and impeded access to the building for about a year.

Still, to hear Harris tell it, the experience was positive.

It certainly was a shock when work began and three tree-covered acres sold to make room for the road was clear-cut. Stumps and felled trees littered what had been an untouched patch of familiar forest, she said.

But when Harris and her partner, Kamille Kallas, looked beyond the trees, they noticed something new.

“We were looking right up Knik Glacier,” Harris said. “We didn’t used to have a view here.”

Acces to the property also is safer, she said.

“I love it,” Harris said of the change.

Luck, fate, or perhaps her adventurous spirit, brought Harris to Alaska 13 years ago from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she did production work at a local newspaper.

She ended up in Alaska after a web search led her to fly north to attend a Mat-Su B&B Association event aimed at aspiring innkeepers. Harris said the group was very welcoming and encouraged her to follow her dreams north to the future.

For a moment, the glass seemed half-full of broken glass after the home and property Harris purchased for her B&B turned out to have spot zoning that prohibited commercial use of the land.

She was packed and ready to move back to Minnesota when a conversation with a farmer in the field next to her changed that.

Jay Dearborn said his brother was selling a place off Trunk Road on 10 acres with a house built the year before in 2002 and been rebuilt. She should really take a look, he said.

Harris bought the property in 2003, and operated Alaska Garden Gate Bed and Breakfast as a four-room bed and breakfast there for several years.

They needed more space to keep up with demand, so the couple added seven cottages to the property. They still rent apartments in the main house, but it gave guests more options, she said.

As Garden Gate Bed and Breakfast bookings increased, expansion meant they had more guests than they could fit in their home’s dining area. But they still wanted a central place for guests to share a meal, Harris said.

Concurrently, guests also asked for more options in accommodations, including bigger units and cheaper lodging for groups, she said.

“The Inn” at Alaska Garden Gate opened with a ribbon cutting May 14. The new facility offers both increased lodging options and a commercial kitchen and dining area where guests gather to share their morning meal, Harris said.

At one end of The Inn is a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment. In the center section is a hotel-style lodging suite with five private sleeping spaces that share a kitchenette and seating area.

She said the hotel-style rooms each have five bunk beds, and have been a popular option for sports teams — like the Homer High softball team — traveling to the Valley to compete.

The dining hall, with comfortable seating for 56, occupies the remaining third of The Inn.

Harris said they weren’t planning to install a commercial kitchen and sprinklers in the building, but their plans changed after the State Fire Marshal and the Department of Environmental Conservation weighed in.

Harris said they began the project thinking the space was an extension of their bed and breakfast service they’ve offered in their home for years, which doesn’t need to be DEC certified. But the Inn, because it is not their residence, is treated as a hotel by the Fire Marshal and DEC.

That meant an additional $50,000 for sprinklers and extra engineering.

It also means opportunity for Garden Gate to expand its catering services for events at the site and throughout the community, she said.

They had planned to open the building in November 2014, but the building wasn’t ready until last month, she said.

Several large paintings by Valley artist Linda Henning also hang on the walls at The Inn.

It was booked solid as soon as the doors opened, Harris said.

“We could fill them four times over if they had more cottages,” she said.

They do plan to build four more cottages, maybe as soon as May 2016, Harris said. She said tour operators want the convenience and efficiency of dropping off a whole busload of guests at one location.

“We are doing our best to accommodate, Harris said.

The business employees eight people — including the two owners — to cook, clean, take bookings and tend the gardens. Often, employees are friends or family of other staff members, Harris said.

“In one family, we are on the third and fourth sisters,” she said.

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.