By ROBIN STANTON GERROW
BG Independent News
When you put literal blood, sweat and tears—on top of a lot of money—into a dream, it can be hard to accept that maybe it isn’t really what you wanted.
That was what Shaun Reeves was facing when making the decision to sell The Lincoln House Inn less than a year after opening Bowling Green’s only historic inn.
Built in 1895, the home originally belonged to Dr. Joseph Lincoln and his wife, Nettie. In the years since, it has been a single-family home, a fraternity and a sorority house and a student co-op. It still had tenants when Reeves purchased the home in 2024 with the intent to turn it into an inn.
“We got the keys back in August last year and immediately started working,” she said. “The floors came first. We fixed the pocket doors and then started upstairs. There was a lot of wall patchwork that needed to be done and seven rooms that still had the drop ceilings that needed to come down. Luckily, there wasn’t anything underneath them, like electrical work or duct work that was hiding. There were some that had major holes in the ceiling, so I had to learn how to patch up that kind of stuff.”
With a tight timeline for opening, Reeves threw herself into the project.
“I wasn’t expecting the amount of time and physical labor it was going to take to get it up and going,” she said.
Another unexpected hurdle was the roof which needed to be replaced, resulting in Reeves taking out a second mortgage on her home.
“When I bought her, she had seven different types of shingles on her, and they were different colors,” she said. “Because it’s such a large roof, they were only ever fixing what the current issue was. At the time, there wasn’t any leaking, but my insurance company insisted it needed to be replaced. They gave me six months, but that was a huge expense that I wasn’t anticipating.”
Although Reeves started out with a business partner, Heidi Bisbee, that partnership has since dissolved.
Reeves said since the opening, several descendants of the Lincoln family have stayed at the inn.
“We even connected cousins that didn’t even know about each other and they met here,” she said. “The family is just so rich in history and they’re super proud of where they come from. I have this huge emotion towards the house and once I started digging into the history, I became connected to them too. And it’s not even my family.”
A great-great-great-granddaughter of Joseph and Nettie, Jennifer (Romaker) Yingling, currently serves as the live-in innkeeper.
Reeves said after a lot of reflection, she also realized her passion lies in launching new ventures and businesses. She has another project underway already.
“Like any new business, it’s going to take a minute for (the inn) to gain popularity,” she said. “But now I’ve leveraged my personal home against this property. I’m not upside down by any means and we still have rooms being booked, but I’ve carried her as far as I’m able.”
“I think I just wanted to see her come back to life,” Reeves said. “I’ve done that and I still am so proud of what I’ve done. I hope that somebody just picks her up where I dropped her. I really believe this is meant to be somebody else’s dream.”
