Your Innkeeper

Meet Karen Franzone

While Karen hails from New York (born in Brooklyn, raised on Long Island), she lived in Chesterbrook, PA for fifteen years before moving to Corpus Christi, Texas upon her husband’s job opportunity there. The family of four moved and lived there until his passing in December 2022, eight months after which Karen returned to her Chesterbrook home and began to plan the next phases of her life.

Karen’s Italian roots, with the typical Sunday large family gatherings, combined with her love of cooking and in-home entertainment, has led her over the years to dream of one day owning her own bed and breakfast. What better venue was there for her to make people happy with her cooking and to welcome guests into her home, she thought.

Well, in February of this year, this dream has come true. After some soul searching and resurrecting this dream, she returned to PA and began her search for her bed and breakfast. It had to be in PA – it just made sense. And as she continued her search, it had to be Amish country – she remembers taking her kids there quite a few times as they were growing up, and she and her mom had eaten at an Amish family’s home. To say that Karen has always been impressed by other cultures would be an understatement, as evidenced by her three years of living in Russia, two of which were with the Peace Corps, and her having studied in Spain while a junior in college. Karen believed that she would love to be immersed in yet another culture, right here in the beautiful state of PA!

So she searched, and decided that it had to be the Historic Smithton Inn! After meeting the then long-time owner, Rebecca, it was discovered that there were many similarities to the two women’s stories. Rebecca was from Vestal, NY; Karen studied at SUNY-Binghamton. Rebecca moved here from Texas; Karen moved here from Texas, via Chesterbrook. But the clincher was that Rebecca was on the committee to get the Winters Leadership Memorial built. The statue is a tribute to Major Winters, one of the most famous soldiers featured in the Band of Brothers mini-series, which just happened to be her late husband, Andy’s, favorite series. As a side-but-relevant note, Andy, who served in the military for over twenty years and continued to serve as Lt. Colonel in the PA National Guard at Fort Indiantown Gap, even during the eight years of living in Texas, never let a Memorial Day go by without attending a Memorial Day ceremony with Karen and their kids; Andy is at his final resting place at Ft. Indiantown Gap, which is only twenty-six miles from the Inn. Karen hopes to be able to be able to start a tradition of a Memorial Day ceremony here in Ephrata, with the Leadership Memorial as the ceremony’s site.

Since Karen closed on the property in February of 2024, she has really delved into the local markets, sourcing food for her farm-to-table breakfasts. She gets her meats mostly from Green Dragon’s meat markets, most fruits and vegetables from Reiff’s market, her cheese and yogurt from September Farm, and her eggs from EK Martin & Sons. When she is out and about shopping, she tries new foods and thinks about how she can incorporate them into her cooking.

It is Karen’s goal to build upon the strong reputation that the Inn has, and to continue to welcome guests into her home, and making them smile with her food and hospitality.