The History of the E. J. Bowman House

The house at 2674 Lititz Pike has stood for more than 165 years and passed through five families. Four of our guest rooms carry their names.

Dr. E. J. Bowman, 1860–1883

Dr. E. J. Bowman built the original two-story house in 1860 and lived here while running his apothecary from the same building. The Italianate style — the tall windows, the bracketed eaves — was at the height of fashion in Lancaster County at the time.

The Bowman Suite, our third-floor Jacuzzi suite, is named for him.

Dr. Elias Witmer, 1883–1961

Dr. Elias Witmer, a surgeon, bought the house after Dr. Bowman's death in 1883. He made the additions that gave the house its present shape: in 1888, a third story and a two-story wing that became his medical office, where he performed minor surgery. A second addition followed in 1903 at the back of the office wing — the space that now serves as the innkeepers' quarters.

Three generations of Witmers lived here, the longest tenure of any family. Seventy-eight years.

The Witmer Room, with its enclosed porch and garden view, is named for them.

The Hauck Family, 1961–1998

The Haucks ran Hauck's General Store out of an old hotel on the Neffsville square. They owned the house for thirty-seven years and converted it into multi-unit housing, which is how it spent most of the twentieth century, as apartments rather than a single home.

The Hauck Room, our brightest, is named for them.

Alice and Ey Murphey, 1998–2012

Alice and Ey Murphey bought the house in 1998 with the intention of turning it into a bed and breakfast. It took them a little over a year of work to get there. They opened in 2000 and ran the inn for twelve years, and they began the tradition of naming the rooms for the families who had lived here.

Alice's pressed-flower art still hangs in the Hauck Room.

The Murphey Room, the most secluded in the house, is named for them.

Scott and Diane O'Donnell, 2012–present

We bought the bed and breakfast in 2012, intending to continue what the Murpheys had started. Fourteen years on, we're still at it, with a returning guest list we're grateful for and new guests finding us every season.

We kept the naming tradition. The fifth room is the exception: the Lucinda-Mae is named for our mothers, a combination of their middle names.

The Murals

Fourteen hand-painted murals by the Lancaster Mural Company line the foyer and formal staircase, depicting seasonal scenes of Lancaster County life in the late nineteenth century, roughly the years Dr. Witmer was practicing here.