Written by Nancy Fontaine. Photos by Herb Swanson.

Tucked off the street across from the Lyme Green sits the white-clapboard Dowds’ Country Inn. Go down the driveway a few feet, and you will see the main entrance—a flagstone patio leading to a porch with white rocking chairs, a bubbling fountain in front.

The reception area in the 1790s’ house is in a charming room with exposed beams and wide pine-board floors opening onto the sunny breakfast room at one end and a living room with couches and a fireplace at the other. The 20 individually decorated guest rooms all have names; the rooms in the front of the house are named after people or places in New England, and the rooms at the back of the house are named after Dartmouth dorms. Guests and staff alike smile in the relaxed atmosphere.

“We are really blessed; we have a great core staff,” says owner Tami Dowd. “We want people to come to work and have fun,” adds Patrick Dowd, manager and Tami’s older son.

All in the Family

The business is a family affair. Tami has been the proprietor here since 1989, and her younger son Duncan is a sous chef in the kitchen. “I am very excited to be working with Chef James, and it is nice to see the Inn full or energy and excitement,” Duncan says. The gardens are tended by Tami’s father, Wayne Pike. Darryl Torrey, Tami’s husband, and her dad have managed the recent upgrades to the property that include a new patio off the 200-seat banquet room for outdoor cocktail receptions, new landscaping for the back courtyard and the area around the pond, and—the jewel in the crown—the addition that made room for the Latham House Tavern.