Della Wayne
Innkeeper & Head Cook
Lil's youngest daughter. Took over the kitchen in 2004 and hasn't bought a can of biscuit dough since. Knows every regular's coffee order by heart.
A porch-light kind of place, since 1998.
Twenty-six years of homemade biscuits, slow mornings, and the kind of welcome that makes you kick your shoes off at the door. Meet the family behind the porch.
Our Story
It started with a kettle, a creaking porch swing, and grandma's recipe box.
Lil Wayne B&B was never really a business plan. It was a 1908 farmhouse, a wood stove, and a stubborn grandmother named Lillian "Lil" Wayne who decided — after her husband passed — that the easiest way to keep the lights on was to fill the extra bedrooms with strangers who quickly became family. The first guestbook entry, written in 1998, reads: "Came for one night. Stayed a week. Ate too much pie."
More than two decades later, the recipe box has grown to 312 index cards (some stained with blueberry), the creaking porch swing has been re-strung exactly twice, and the guestbook now holds over 9,400 entries. We've added four rooms, a wood-fired sauna, and a smokehouse out back. What we haven't added: TVs in the bedrooms, key-card check-ins, or anything that would make this place feel like a hotel instead of a home.
What We Believe
Three rules that shape every stay.
We don't have a mission statement framed in the lobby. We just have a few things we won't compromise on — the kind of small stubbornness that turns a house into a home.
Made by hand, every morning
Our bread is mixed at 5:30 a.m. by whichever Wayne is on rota that week. The jam is last summer's strawberries, the eggs are from the Buff Orpingtons out back, and the coffee is roasted by Marv down the road. We cook like we're feeding our own.
Stay long enough to be a regular
Two nights is a visit. Four is a friendship. We've watched couples return every anniversary for nineteen years running, and we still remember which room they like (the one with the morning doves, always). Loyalty like that is the whole point.
Leave the place better than you found it
This farmhouse is 117 years old. She creaks, she leans a little to the west, and she'll outlast all of us if we treat her right. We compost, we mend, we re-use, and we plant three new things in the garden every spring to give back what we take.
Strangers become family, fast
By the second morning, the couple at the corner table is passing the syrup to the solo traveler three seats down. By the second night, someone's showing off vacation photos. We design the dining room for that — long tables, no assigned seats, plenty of coffee.
Quiet is a feature, not a bug
No TVs in the rooms. No conference calls in the parlor. No music piped through the halls. The loudest sound you'll hear at 7 a.m. is the espresso machine and the chickens arguing. That's not an accident — it's the whole pitch.
Local first, always
Every blanket on every bed is from the wool cooperative in the next town. The soap in your bathroom is rendered in a barn eight miles east. The map we hand you at check-in has 41 hand-drawn pins, and only three of them are chain businesses. Spend your money where you slept.
By the Numbers
Twenty-six years in, and still pinching ourselves.
26
Years hosting guests
Since the spring of 1998
9,400+
Guestbook entries
In five different inks
312
Recipes in the box
Grandma's, mostly
7
Rooms, never more
And that's a promise
"We came for a wedding down the road and stayed four extra nights just to keep eating that breakfast. Honestly the best decision we made all trip."
— The Harrow Family, guestbook entry #9,127
Meet the Family
The four Waynes still at it.
Three generations, one farmhouse, and a shared allergy to chain hotels. The cast of characters you'll actually meet when you pull up the gravel drive.
Come Sit Awhile
The kettle's on. The porch is yours.
If our story sounds like the kind of place you've been looking for, we'd love to have you. Pick a date, pick a room, and we'll save you a biscuit.