Queen Anne Guest House wins 3 awards for 2012!


Innkeepers Mike and Anita Reese are proud to annouce that the Queen Anne Guest House won 3 awards from Pamela Lanier's Bed and Breakfast Inns for 2012! The award categories were Best Architecture, Best Overall Location and Cutest B&B Mascot! We are very thankful for all our guests who voted for us and we very much appreciate your support.
The following paragraph is taken from www.lanierbb.com.

Mike & Anita Reese run Queen Anne Guest House, the third place winner for Cutest B&B Mascot, and winner for Best Architecture and Best Overall Location. Based in Galena, Illinois, one distinctive feature there was mentioned again and again: the close-to-downtown location. Queen Anne Guest House is known for relaxing parlors, artwork and a beautiful garden --and it is a small B&B. Inn voters commented "a charming Queen Anne guest house", "gourmet breakfasts" and "comfortable and clean."

The Queen Anne Guest House, a premier Bed and Breakfast in Galena Illinois is an excellent example of Queen Anne style architecture which was popular in America from 1880 to 1910. Classic characteristics of the Queen Anne style are steeply pitched roofs of irregular shapes, usually with dominant front facing gables, patterned shingles, cut-away bay windows, conical towers, mulitple gables, many lathe-turned spindles and detailed woodwork.

The Queen Anne style was first introduced to America in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition through the premier works of Richard Norman Shaw, an English architect. Shaw's architctural designs were unique and unlike European styles such as Gothic Revival, Italiannate and Second Empire. Shaw used half-timbering and mutiple gables to create a new style that paid homage to England's medival Tudor cottages without reviving or imitating them. Although labelled "Queen Anne" the houses did not resemble buildings of the Queen's reign (1702-1714).

The Queen Anne style covered a broad range of varieties with the most prominent being Stick, Shingle and Eastlake. The Queen Anne Guest House is a fine example of an Eastlake Queen Anne which was popular in the United States from 1870's- 1890's. Construction integrity, sound craftsmanship and harmonius architecture were the fundamentals of this style.

The Queen Anne Guest House is a beautiful home displaying all these qualities. Construction of the home began in 1891 and was completed in 1892 with W.A. Telford as architect and builder. William Ridd, born in Devon, England, owned the largest factory in Galena and was the first owner of this fine residence.

A local newspaper article notes of the home construction, "The exterior arrangement is ornamental and pleasing to the eye. There will be several gables, ample porches and two bays. The corner bay is two stories high and extends above all forming a sightly tower. There is a cellar under the whole house. Good material is being used in the building and it will be one of the best built houses in the city."

The Queen Anne Guest House is a true testament to this statement as it retains all the original flooring, woodwork, stained glass and pair of working pocket doors. It was a very "high tech" home at the time of construction as it had a full bathroom with indoor plumbing and was heated entirely by steam heat radiators.

Mike and Anita, Innkeepers of the Queen Anne Guest House love to talk about the history of their home and would be delighted to have you as guests at their Bed and Breakfast.