In 1989, when Carol and Richard Mack purchased the Hereford Hotel near the intersection of Routes 100 and 29, they knew they'd have to update the kitchen.
They didn't figure on spending the next 8 years fixing up the 177-year-old building.
The Macks and their grown sons, Richard Jr. and Douglas, tackled the plumbing, heating and septic systems, and installed new floors, new windows and a new kitchen. They tore down old plaster and lathe ceilings and found outdated k**b and tube wiring that had to be replaced. They remodeled the 12 upstairs rooms.
Then, in the midst of the renovations, when most people would have cried "uncle" and walked away from the whole thing, the Macks purchased an 18th century double house across from the hotel. Rumor had it that the building was going to be torn down.
Built in 1745, the double once housed a foundry where the first North American cook stove was built, according to a historic marker on Route 100 that credits John Mayberry with casting the stove.
Richard Jr. and Douglas, an architect, restored the double, which is occupied by two antiques stores.
After the brothers removed the stucco from the double and repointed the stone, the Macks did the same with the hotel. Their job was made harder by the outer layers of stucco and brick they had to remove from the hotel to get at the stone.
When the Macks bought the hotel, Carol envisioned turning it into a cozy bed and breakfast.
It hasn't come about yet. But it's still part of the Macks' future plans.
"I was really naive to buy it," Carol confesses.
Richard admits to being tired of renovating, although he was "keen in the beginning."
Neither had experience in operating a hotel. Richard owned a concrete contracting business, Mack and Stoudt Inc., headquartered in Coopersburg. The concrete business is now run by Richard Jr. and Douglas.
Carol operated a beauty salon in their Coopersburg home for 30 years until neurological damage to one arm from an auto accident forced her to give it up. Today, she cooks for the hotel's breakfast and lunch trade while Richard tends bar.
Carol renamed the hotel Poor Richard's Historic Hereford Inn, after Ben Franklin, whom she admires.
"He's kind of my idol. He helped everybody; he provided Poor Richard's Almanacs free to people in the farm community so they would have reading material." Still, Franklin was earthy enough to enjoy going to bars and was something of a womanizer, she says.
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Carol has been delving into the hotel's history and collecting old photographs of it. Some hang on the walls along with original posters advertising the pig and cattle auctions that were held there.
During the hotel's first two decades, Philadelphia doctors and lawyers formed a literary society that met at the hotel. The building served as a stagecoach stop in another era, and a bus stop in this century. It was rumored to be a stopping place on the underground railway which helped runaway slaves reach safety.
No ghosts came with the hotel, but Carol spooked one salesman by inventing one to go with the kitchen door which swung open and closed of its own accord whenever the hotel's front door was opened and shut.
When the door swung open, Carol told the purported ghost: "Susan, if you're not going to help me, please get out of here."
The door closed as she knew it would. The salesman has since steered clear of the kitchen.
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Restoration and renovations at the hotel continue. The Macks plan to move the ladies' rest room from the front of the barroom, where it was partitioned off years ago, and redo the men's room.
Carol hopes to find an art student to restore a mural on the second floor that was painted in the early years of this century and damaged when the Macks jacked up the hotel before repointing the stone. The details in a second mural along the staircase are almost obscured from view by years of smoke and dirt.
The smell of fresh varnish is in the air as Carol stands in the hotel dining room looking around at the repointed stone, the restored fireplace and the replacement windows.
"I'm sick of dirt," she says.
Still, there are benefits.
"At last, I'm starting to be proud of it."
