DEERFIELD — Before they were innkeepers at the Deerfield Inn at Historic Deerfield, husband and wife Karl Sabo and Jane Howard had plans, down to the last ferry line and border crossing, to travel the world.
“We had plans to drive all the way around the world,” Sabo related, while sitting with his wife recently in their inn’s cozy pale yellow living room.
However, their plans changed when Howard discovered she was pregnant soon after they moved to Deerfield. In 1987, the couple began a long innkeeping career, which will soon end.
Historic Deerfield has announced the innkeepers will step down Oct. 16, and move to the coast of Spain where they have secured a hotel consulting job.
The two met by chance in New York City when Sabo, who attended the Culinary Institute of America, was a chef at Manhattan’s 21 Club. Howard, an international transplant who was born in Bombay, grew up in Paris and Hong Kong and went to university in London, was working in publishing.
As Sabo explained, a friend of his came over with Howard and asked to see the New York restaurant scene.
“That afternoon he knocks on my door with Jane as his date,” Sabo said, adding that the next day Howard said goodbye to his friend and went out with him. “Our first date, we went to the Met and saw an opera. The next date we went and saw Hulk Hogan.”
Some 18 months after their first date the two were married in 1985, moved from New York to Old Deerfield soon after, “fell in love with the town” and settled into a peaceful New England life operating the inn — putting travel plans on hold indefinitely.
Now, almost 30 years and two children (John and Kate) later, the couple is thinking about resurrecting those plans, unfolding maps and hitting the road to experience the trip that never happened.
One day last month, the two were lit by overcast sunlight filtering gently through translucent curtains while drinking tea and fondly reminiscing about the years they have spent innkeeping.
“There was a chap who found a tiny baby mouse in his slipper,” Howard said, remembering how both the guest and the mouse had shrieked at the same time. “That guest was such a dear, for 15 years he sent us a nice card with a mouse in a stocking at Christmas.”
Jack, the couple’s dog and, Howard said, the inn’s “marketing manager,” sat quietly on the carpet beneath a coffee table. He will also depart the inn with Sabo and Howard this month.
Next to Jack, china teacups waited for guests on a corner table, fresh cookies sat on a silver platter, and music filtered softly in from the next room, mingling with conversation from the kitchen.
“There’s a lot of them, enough to write a book,” Sabo had said earlier when asked about memorable stories, such as the time he delivered a deeply slumbering guest’s wake-up call by climbing a ladder and knocking on the outside window. Howard said that while the guest awoke in time for an important phone call, Sabo had to explain to a passing police officer that no, he wasn’t a burglar.
Or the time when a group of British travelers began a years-long correspondence with the couple after the inn’s dining room pipes broke, showering everyone in black sludge.
Through the years, the couple has faced down and made the best of difficult situations such as dealing with unruly guests and repairing storm damage. When the inn had to close for more a year in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, they took advantage of an otherwise bad situation to remodel the restaurant and tavern.
“An innkeeper is here all the time. Whenever it’s needed. Anytime. It’s a big job, but it’s also a very enjoyable job,” Howard said adding, “It was a very different place when we came.”
As far as perks of being an innkeeper, Howard said she’ll miss the guests and the flexible schedule, which has given them time to see each other, time to see their children, and an opportunity to watch generations of travelers come and go through the doors of the historic inn.
“That’s been a really cool thing about this — never miss a game, never miss a recital,” she said, adding, “I love stories, and hearing people tell and share a little piece of themselves is very special.”
Sabo said they hope to return to Franklin County one day, and will keep their house in Old Deerfield.
They invite well-wishers to visit them at the inn, 81 Old Main St., from 4 to 7 p.m. Oct. 16.