Patricia Grande recalls the early 1980s as the beginning of the bed-and-breakfast movement in Rhode Island. It was also a time when she was looking for a career change after working as a television producer.

When she and her late husband, Carl, saw the big house for sale on the hill above Westerly’s Shore Road, they thought: why not?

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Walk through the House of the Week

“Tourism was changing drastically,” with vacationers increasingly looking for “a home away from home,” she said. “The house was perfect for” a bed and breakfast.

They bought the 19-room property at 212 Shore Rd. in 1986. Grande has been the ever-smiling operator of Grandview Bed & Breakfast ever since.

Built in 1910 on slightly less than three acres overlooking Winnapaug Pond and Block Island Sound, the house was among the first year-round residences in the neighborhood.

The first two owners were chiropractors, who used a wing attached to the main house as a clinic.

In the 1950s, the three-floor property became a guest house. Later it was partially converted to efficiency apartments. A doctor with seven children subsequently bought the tree-studded lot, before Grande embarked on her new career as innkeeper.

“It is a very welcoming property. It has a majestic yet unpretentious feel,” said Grande of the house, whose sturdy stone foundation and wraparound porch made it a magnet for locals during the Hurricane of 1938. Local lore has it that people watched anxiously from the safety of the front porch as storm water rose to the foot of the steep driveway.

Grandview has hosted countless weddings, family reunions and group gatherings over the years.

The former clinic has five rooms, one of which is used a sitting room.
Journal photo / Sandor Bodo

“We also have people who come for healing,” she said. “There’s room so they can be by themselves.”

The only major work done on the property since she bought it was the recent installation of sprinklers on the third floor and other safety improvements to accommodate fire-code changes.

New safety regulations that followed the devastating West Warwick nightclub fire in 2003 also limited her maximum occupancy to 16 people, down from 24 when she bought the property.

Some bathrooms could use updating. A section of the roof needs repair and some windows could be replaced.

While still a viable year-round business, she said she’s selling the property “because it’s just time to scale down, while my health is good.”

Visitors enter past two stone pillars at the entrance to a driveway that climbs past shaded rocks and trees to the Victorian-style house with the white, shingled exterior.

Grande likes to greet guests after they’ve climbed concrete steps to the entrance. She turns them around and points half-jokingly to the inn’s namesake, a nice, though no longer grand, view of the water through an opening in tall trees across the street.

Skylights added in the roof above the porch provide extra natural light to a living room with fir hardwoods and a stone fireplace with a brick hearth.

A long, carpeted sunroom serves as the dining hall for guests and has views of large Japanese maple trees.

Nearby is an eat-in kitchen last renovated in the 1970s, with linoleum flooring, Formica counters and green-painted, wood paneling. A large island with cabinets above and below it separates the cooking and dining areas. Appliances are standard and about six years old.

The kitchen has access to an unfinished cellar and a half-bath.

A small room with a private entrance off the kitchen is used as an office.

Four rooms and two baths are found on the second floor. At the top of the stairs, to the left, is a bright, enclosed porch with yellow-painted walls and windows overlooking a mulberry tree.

A carpeted hallway leads to two front rooms with water views. The rooms share a bathroom and one has a private porch.

The erstwhile clinic now includes five rooms and has a private, side entrance.

One of the rooms is used as a sitting area. It has peach-colored walls and hardwood flooring. There’s also a built-in bookcase and enough room for a piano.

Another room used as a bedroom has built-in drawers with metal pulls and a closet with separate storage space above it.

The third floor is used as a family suite and includes a bedroom, sitting room and bath.

The house has 4,112 square feet of living space. It is heated by oil, connected to town water services and has a cesspool.

Two blocks away is Winnapaug Golf Course, designed by Donald Ross and built in 1922. The 18-hole course is open to the public, as are tennis courts located a half-mile in the other direction.

Misquamicut State Beach is a two-mile drive. Route 95 is about 10 miles away.

The property was listed in June for $1.39 million. Real estate taxes last year were $7,188. Lori Joyal, of Lila Delman Real Estate, in Westerly, has the listing: (401) 742-1225.