August 2010. The Schoolmarm, the Mountain Man, and the Bridge between them.

It’s less than good form, I am told, to begin a news story by speaking of oneself, but I find I must. Besides, after this second paragraph I shall melt into the painted scenery like The Common Man in a Middle Ages street play.

At sixty(ish) I have found myself on my own and wondering if I shall remain so for the rest of my days. “How nice it might be to have a man clomping about the house,” I sometimes muse. And then I come to my senses and remember how fortunate I am to have my own spacious nest all to myself, with my clean kitchen, my art supplies, my little unfinished projects—a tidy house chock full of patinated antiques and lady stuff, with not a single greasy baseball cap, sawhorse, disassembled outboard engine, band saw, or mud-caked four-wheeler in sight. Here the toilet seat is rarely left resting in the upright position. And yet...

If I could weave a tale of perfect love at this stage of my own life it might read something like this:  Boy and Girl start out as childhood friends and grow up in the usual ways. One becomes an English teacher in Baton Rouge and the other an attorney and Alaskan Mountain Man (I’ll leave it to you to figure which is which.) Both marry, and after a certain number of years find themselves to be single again. One serendipitous day Boy and Girl happen upon each other as grown-ups, promptly fall in love; and as is with people in such a state, begin the process of finding an ideal site for cohabitation.

Enter Harmony House, a quaint and luxurious bed & breakfast lost in the winding woodland byways of Tunica.  The brief history of Harmony House is one worth inserting here, and so I will. Built in the year 2000 on a five-acre parcel of Ouida Plantation, the home was designed by interior wizard Ellen Kennon in collaboration with owner-investors Keith Koppens and the late Paul Fowler, and outfitted by Kennon and interior designers Patra Coco and Patrick Tandy. Harmony House was initially created as a decorator’s showcase, and was included in St. Francisville’s Audubon Pilgrimage. After the event, owners Fowler and Koppens opened the doors of Harmony House to the public as a charming get-away.

Among the first guests were Jane Simmons and Randy Hunter, the fair-haired Girl and Boy of our story. Through genial camaraderie, cocktails and clever negotiations, Randy soon convinced the owners to make Harmony House his own.

Two Part Harmony

After a couple of years of blissful woodland conjugality, Simmons and Hunter, being of sound middle-aged mind and independence, fell upon the idea of constructing a Hers abode to harmonize side-by-side with His. This proved to be a splendid concept, and one sure to maintain a melodious relationship between the two.

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