Barney and Bob Harris at work.

Barney and Bob Harris are getting that delicious second bite of the apple of which most of us only dream. After working for others for most of their “conventional” careers, they are now running a Virginia bed and breakfast that comes with an optional two-day course in stained glass taught by Barney Harris. As an added bonus, Bob Harris offers courses in flying model fixed-wing planes and helicopters to visitors staying at the inn. “If half of a couple is interested in the glass work, and the other would prefer the flying, it can work out perfectly for everyone,” Bob Harris explains.

As owners of the Chestnut Cove Bed & Breakfast and the attached Zekiah Glass, the couple says they get to enjoy the perfect blend of professional and personal lives. “We live and work at the inn here in Farnham, about three hours from Washington, D.C., where we are able to combine classroom space with studios, two guest rooms with private baths, acres of land, and water and garden views,” explains Barney Harris.

The couple divides the chores around the inn. “Indoors, cooking and tending to guests is my responsibility, and Bob tends to the outdoors (15 acres),” says Barney Harris. “He’s a handy guy with many talents including carpentry, indoors and out.”

The concept of the inn and stained glass workshop seems to work for visitors who come from as far away as Canada, California, Oregon, Georgia, and up and down the East coast. “You can create your own framed art glasswork,” says Barney Harris. “You use our studio space and equipment, learn all you need to know (there is a four-person class limit), and get 10 percent off all book and materials purchases you make during your stay.”

Home cooking and fresh baked goods help round out the experience of escaping from it all and immersing oneself in an arts experience. Visitors can choose between two themed, guest rooms, each with private bath.

	(Left) A mother and her daughters are among the visitors to the inn who have participated in the glass workshops.
	(Right) A Washington, D.C., couple show the work they created.
A couple from Pennsylvania show the two panels they created at Barney and Bob Harris’ inn.

Friend Encouraged New Ventures

A view of the grounds surrounding the inn.

What started for both Barney and Bob Harris as hobbies, have now become a lifestyle that they love. The Harrises say they lived full lives before they left La Plata, Md., in 1996 for the wide-open spaces where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake and the Rappahannock.

“ Bob retired in 1994,” Barney Harris explains. “I had lost my job (the company had gone bankrupt), and through the encouragement of a friend who owned a local hobby shop in La Plata, I began teaching stained glass classes, which had always been just a hobby for me.” Barney Harris had attended the Corcoran School of Art, and after teaching locally, it became clear that a career in stained glass was what she wanted to do.

Today, all of the Harris’ income is entirely derived from the bed and breakfast, the classes, stained glass commission work, and work that Barney Harris sells in local galleries. “My biggest commission has been work on a local church, the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where I did a 450-square-foot stained glass window,” she says. “They were so pleased that they had me do all of the windows in the church. During [Hurricane Isabel], I kept my fingers crossed that they would all survive, and gladly they did. It was a lot of hard work.”

Barney Harris.

Barney Harris finds inspiration everywhere, and is thrilled to share thoughts and techniques with all of her students.

Third Career For Glassblower

For Bob Harris, the bed and breakfast, along with building and flying model planes, is actually a third career. “I was a master glassblower for NASA for 30 years, and while there doing scientific work, I began blowing glass on my own to fulfill my artistic side,” he explains. “I began combining my own glassblowing with NASA by making awards for dignitaries and those who did a lot to push space projects forward. For me, and for NASA, it was a great time in history.”

Perhaps the piece that gives him the greatest feeling of achievement is the creation of the Wright Trophy (names are added each year to the accompanying plaque which honors major achievements in aviation), which resides in the lobby of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum. “It was the kind of honor that is a once-in-a-lifetime achievement,” he says. “If I did nothing else, this would be enough.”

Bob Harris refuses to divulge his process for replicating satellites and shuttles in miniature to present as awards. “I invented the process with which I made these pieces,” he says. “I have kept a few for myself, but I haven’t taught anyone else how to do it, and it will die with me.”

Barney Harris, on the other hand, finds inspiration everywhere, and is thrilled to share thoughts and techniques with all of her students (who often keep in touch afterward by phone and e-mail for pointers and suggestions). “Since Bob was always into glass, I was also attracted to it as a medium,” she says. “We went to see the Tiffany Glass Panels in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; that was my initial inspiration to do what I do. The textures and the colors, and what light does to it transfixed me.”

Today, she gets most of her inspiration from the students who come to work with her from near and far. “When a new student comes to me with their own experiences, and their own interests, I learn something, or see the work in a whole new way,” she says. “It adds something special to be able to keep learning.”

The Harrises feel fortunate that they have had to do very little advertising for their ventures. “Artglassinfo.com, an Internet-only magazine, has been quite successful as our primary tool in attracting visitors,” Barney Harris explains. “Other than that, it seems to be word-of-mouth, and an article written about us here and there.”

Amy Feinstein is a Maryland-based free-lance writer.