There are many hotels in Grand Rapids. Most are for business. Or maybe landing spots for visiting nearby family or hitting a travelling sporting event.

One of our first customers was a man whose son was in the hospital around the corner from our Bed and Breakfast. We didn’t yet have beds built in all our rooms, so at first we referred him to one of the other B&Bs, like Peaches, The Leonard, or the Lafayette House. But it was ArtPrize week, and everyone was booked. So we said, give us an hour and we’ll cobble a room together. He spent two nights with us within easy walking distance to St Mary’s and his son.

The man who built our 1882 Bed & Breakfast once lived in the hotel that is now the Amway Grand Plaza hotel. From our pioneer days, Grand Rapids has needed housing for businessmen. Today there’s also the JW Marriot or City Flats hotel in the downtown core to offer luxury and trendy accommodations.

And no doubt, the chain motels abound in the suburbs and interchanges for those passing through efficiently. If you need a hotel in Grand Rapids, there are many corporate and conglomerate options.

But we are less hotel and more home. The Parsonage Inn is more a Victorian refuge in the heart of the city than a cookie-cutter room in a factory building. We live here in this house, so we hope it’s more like staying with your favorite relatives than counting the frequent flyer miles. Our furniture has stories, like the couch that survived the 1956 F5 tornado, or the 1939 grandparents’ honeymoon suite, or the $5 coffee table that kept our kids safe from hot pizza.

We too are a hotel in Grand Rapids, but as a bed and breakfast filled with stories, we are more home than hotel! We hope you’ll come for a visit!

-Steven Koster

Call it a soft launch, but on 16 September 2017 we welcomed our first guest to our bed and breakfast. We’ve truly entered the commercial lodging business, but hope to be more home than hotel.

We’ve had many, many guests over the years, mostly friends and family, some friends of friends, and a few complete strangers. Better than any hotel, we’ve tried to be a home away from home as best we can. Some we rescued from sleeping the night in the airport. Some needed to find their feet in a new city. Some came to see us and some came to see the sights. Some just needed to be somewhere other than they were for a while.

Hospitality is one way we’ve been gifted as pastors. it’s our prayer The Parsonage Inn LLC is Home, Hotel, and Hospitality center all at once.

Sometimes we chat with people from our front porch as they walk by. Sometimes they come up for lemonade, some stories, and even a prayer or two. Sometimes we bring them in for a tour of our 1882 Queen Anne house, built without plumbing until 1900, tiled floor to ceiling in the 1940s, and remodeled in the 1990s. And now, sometimes, people can come stay with us overnight, catch some stories, and explore the whole city.

And sometimes we may well reserve a weekend or two just for guests who want to join us for a seminar on marriages and families. We lead retreats from coast to coast, so it seems like a good chance to lead a few right here, literally at home.

In any case, we’re in business now. We’re looking forward to how our home will be used to bless all who enter.