Bed, Breakfast and Beyond

Driving onto the property at Montana Style Bed and Breakfast is akin to

entering a world where treasures from other times and other places transform

the rooms and atmosphere into a wonderland for guests, where an aged wooden wagon, of the horse-drawn variety, hanging from the ceiling is a chandelier, a entury-old quilt is a covering for a sub-wall, and weather-checked signs, windmill blades and rusty car parts are displayed with the rest of the fine art.

Betsi Knight's bed and breakfast, open for a year now, is a transformation itself in which a farm-sized shop, an outbuilding and a farm house have become an events center, a cabin, and sleeping accommodations for up to 14 people with plenty of nooks and seating areas both indoors and out for guests to relax and enjoy each others' company.

"This used to be the barn," Knight said gesturing to the modern kitchen around her in a room attached to the north side of the events center.

As for the treasures found throughout the buildings and grounds, Knight said she's always been interested in an eclectic array of antiques and found items. She formerly ran Montana Style Interiors, which for a handful of years included a storefront in North Havre, where she sold some of her inventory and helped decorate homes and commercial spaces, before she started developing the bed and breakfast.

Knight has done the vast majority of remodeling in the B & B's buildings and, of course, all of the decorating.

From building things like the new bar, complete with a desk cubby for a wine rack, to go with her forthcoming liquor license and the closet/dresser/storage unit that acts as a room divider for one of the bedrooms to finishing her walls with mosaic tiles and a clay mask embedded in her homemade stucco wall treatment, Knight is the architect of this world.

She said she still keeps her eyes open for more treasures, and sometimes friends will give her first option on furniture they are getting rid of, or the opportunity to dig through rogue stashes of forgotten items piled away in outbuildings and never dealt with. She has a line on an old Texaco sign she wants to put at the entrance to the property, she said, or hang on an exterior wall of the events center.

The unique setting she has created is part of what has fueled her perfect-score, superhost rating on Airbnb.com. The website brought Knight her first guests one year ago this month, but her attention to guests' needs is the other crucial ingredient.

"I've always been passionate about cooking and entertaining," Knight said, as a way of explaining why she started a B & B at 63, an age when most people are working on retirement plans.

That passion shows, whether she's talking about the facility, the activities, the food or the guests themselves.

The first group of guests referred through Airbnb.com came the first day she was in operation.

"They sent me a whole school," Knight said with a laugh. "It was a speech and debate finals, the state finals last January, and I had coaches and students here, and we filled everything. It was great."

From the balcony off the bedrooms above the events center kitchen she pointed out the stairway and paths down to where she has evening campfires - sometimes complete with a musical guest - and to the staging area for outdoor wedding ceremonies.

Knight said, for a wedding held there last year the bride changed in the main bedroom, made her entrance down the stairway to the ceremony held on the lawn, and then the wedding party and guests walked around the corner of the building to the main floor of the events center for the reception. After the meal, which Knight prepared and served with a little help, they pulled open the rollup garage-type door, and danced and celebrated into the night.

At the end of the reception, she said, a coach bus that the wedding party had booked pulled in, loaded up all the guests who weren't staying at the B & B and delivered them safely to town.

"Which was perfect," she said, adding that she got the shuttle service's contact information for future events because the B & B is outside of town, down a country road and is getting that liquor license.

Located northwest of Havre about eight miles down River Road, Montana Style B & B overlooks the Milk River to the south, has access to hiking in the badlands to the north and is not too far from the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks rookery. Knight said she's close enough to town for convenience, but far enough out to give guests that rural, outdoors experience with wide-open skies, wildlife wandering through the yard, and peace and quiet.

Just don't try to find the place with a GPS navigation system, she said. One couple ended up out in a field "almost in Canada, but they did see four elk," she added.

She has had good luck so far getting customers, she said, with a little advertising along with listings with Airbnb and the Montanan Bed and Breakfast Association, plus word of mouth.

She also donated a dinner for eight to Montana Actors' Theatre to auction off in a fundraiser. It raised

$2,600 for the local troupe, which contributed the beer and wine and a few people to help serve and clean up.

Business has built steadily through the year, Knight said, but so far, the B&B has been a one-woman operation, including breakfast for guests every morning. Other meals and entertainment is added upon request. And she caters for functions at the events center, whether the gathering is a big party or a group of friends getting together for lunch.

Kinght said she uses fresh, local and organic ingredients whenever possible and rarely follows a recipe, she added, relying instead on her experience and cooking instincts.

One guest, she said was in town to lead a group training, and she ended up having Knight make a lunch for the group.

Guests have come from all over the world, Knight said, the farthest from China.

She said that after the first year in business she understands why the state B & B association recommends owners set aside time to take their own vacation every year. She has learned a lot, she said, such as clean the rooms and bedding immediately after guests leave because it's the only way to prepare for surprise bookings, and charge for dogs because you never know when a guest's description of "a few dogs" means 20 corgis staying for three days - true story.

But she has learned plenty of nice things, too, and mostly those amount to the fact that she is glad she decided to open the bed and breakfast.

She said she's working on plans to be a part of some loccal events in 2018, and she is interested to see how many guests come for return stays.

"You bond so much with these people that come," she said. "I just love it."