In stark contrast to the high-priced, high-rise resorts up the coast, Chin-coteague’s Miss Molly’s Inn instills visitors with a sense of place that for some may prove indelible. Like the small is-land on which it sits, whose isolation and thin soil have never caved in to the var-ious booms that threatened to consume it, the inn reflects persistence in the face of change. It lies on the island’s main drag, which is orderly and navigable even on holiday weekends, just over the causeway bridge from the wisp of the mainland. Although the island as a whole may once again be undergoing some-thing of a rediscovery, Miss Molly’s is a quiet retreat, an enclave of simple hospitality and respectful company.
A chief reason is innkeeper Barbara Wiedenheft, co-owner of this 1886 Victorian, which she recently transformed from a low, unobtrusive structure into a “painted lady” with mauve, pumice, grayish-green, and cream exterior accents. Flanked by a series ofporches and sitting just off Main Street, it is named after builder J.T. Rowley’s daughter, wholived here until she was 84. In a previous incarnation as a rooming house, the inn played host to Marguerite Henry, author of Misty of Chincoteague. Bar-bara will point out the second-floor room where Henry stayed while writing the book, which has helped produce a constant stream of guests since its publication in 1947. The cozy upstairs rooms have Victorian furnishings, reading lights, and copies of the text especially for insomniacs. Guests may wander onto the inn’s various porches to enjoy the sea breeze or into the screened-in gazebo, which faces the channel and its fishing traffic.
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