Foxglove Cottage

Foxglove Cottage is easy to find. It's a few miles from downtown Plymouth on winding, tree-lined Sandwich Road, the original colonial highway to Boston. Just look for the house painted pink, a color favored inside and out. Set on 40 acres of rolling fields and woods, the cottage has a spacious lawn bordered by holly, rhododendrons, and the remnants of an old stone wall. The front of the inn, an 1820 Cape-style clapboard home, faces a pasture with grazing horses, the gravel drive and entrance are at the side. You enter the inn by walking into the cheerful Common Room, a 1950's addition furnished with a geranium-print sofa and chairs, green wall-to-wall carpeting, a fireplace, and a late-Victorian oak rocking chair, chest, and armoire, which holds a TV and VCR for guests. Michael Cowan and her husband Charlie originally bought the house in 1990 as a private home, and their love for European B&Bs led them to convert it to an inn, removing shingles to restore the original clapboard look, exposing wideboard floors once hidden in attic space, and meticulously furnishing each room with matching antiques. Michael favors the Victorian period, and every room in the original house is carefully decorated with coordinating fabrics, wallpapers, and collectibles, some of which are for sale. Lamps, tea sets, and china dogs and cats are set on tables, portraits of women on ivory and porcelain hang on the walls. Two guest rooms, named the Marble room and Canopy Room for the size of their beds, are upstairs on either side of a landing . Each has beautiful wideboard floors, and English gas fireplace, two upholstered chairs with a lamp between them, and a private bath with tub and shower. The Marble room has a rose and cream paisley comforter on the bed, and English floral wallpaper in the colors of lettuce-green, lavender, rose, and grape. There is a needlepoint chair, needlepoint pillows on the bed, and a marble-topped walnut dresser with a Palladian mirror. The Canopy room features two mahogany pineapple four-poster beds with white eyelet comforters and pillows. Framed silhouettes on the wall pick up on the black trim of fabrics and rose wallpaper. A full breakfast of entrees-such as waffles with bananas and maple syrup, or sausage, egg, and cheese casserole- is served in the small, formal dining room in front of a fireplace with an original beehive oven. In good weather, breakfast is served on the deck off of the Common Room. Rooms: Rose (Queen), Marble (Queen), and Canopy (Twin or King). All with en-suite private baths, A/C, reading and sitting areas, and working fireplaces. Large common room with fireplace, TV/VCR, and minifridge. Rates: From $80.00. No smoking, No pets. Children 12 - two night minimum on weekends and Holidays in season. Telephone: 800-479-4746, 508-747-6576. Fax: 508-747-7622.