Boyertown's First Lady & White House

September 30, 2016

11:24 AM

Every town has its heart. Sometimes it’s the geographical center, often the location of the first settlement. Sometimes it’s the place where people tend to gather or just drop by on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s a person who has made a significant difference.

In Boyertown, the heart of the town is both a person and a place. You’ll find them just off the main intersection of Reading and Philadelphia avenues.

Marianne Deery, longtime mayor of the town, and her fabled Victorian-era bed and breakfast, the Twin Turrets Inn, are the indisputable collective heart of the borough.

Historical partners

Marianne and the Twin Turrets have been active partners in Boyertown’s history for nearly three decades.

In 1987, Marianne, newly single, helped her friend Gary Slade salvage and repurpose the structure at 11 E. Philadelphia Avenue with a down-to-the-studs interior demolition. “I helped with the gutting,” she says. “We took out most everything that was here.”

The ramshackle board house they attacked was a far cry from the building’s impressive legacy.

Daniel B. Boyer built it as the country was in the throes of the Civil War. Boyer, along with his brother Henry, was a founder of the borough to which they lent their name.

An early photograph of the structure reveals a substantial two-story brick edifice with rows of windows fronting Philadelphia Avenue and just a hint of the Victorian bric-a-brac detail that would become increasingly prevalent as the era progressed.

The affluent Boyer family traveled to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition on July 4, 1876. They liked what they saw both in the fashionable streets of the city and at that early world’s fair. They returned to Boyertown with ideas for their own home.

A fashionable change

By 1880, those ideas became reality. They added a front porch, an elaborate copper-accented bay window sporting curved glass on the second floor, and copper-clad turrets at either end of the roof line.

Impressive as the home was, its size was no match for the growing family. By 1891, Daniel and his son Horace K. Boyer, who resided at 9 E. Philadelphia Avenue, traded homes. The home at 11 E. Philadelphia Avenue remained with Boyer descendants for most of the next century.

But the purpose of the home changed over the years. “It became the starter home for various Boyers who came along,” Marianne says. “In the 1950s, it became a boarding house and then fell into disrepair.”

A visionary hero

Slade, then a Boyertown antiques aficionado and dealer, saw the potential in the property.

Following the demolition, the building was dramatically reconfigured. The downstairs public rooms included a large living area, huge dining room, and sizeable kitchen. The three bedrooms grew to 10 with a total of 11 bathrooms throughout the first, second and third floors.

Marianne proudly notes that while interior livable square footage of the building increased, no additions were added to change the face of the structure. Instead, the front porch was enclosed, creating a lobby of sorts. On the second floor, a rear hall and open porch were enclosed, and on the first floor, an open porch and former servants’ quarters were also enclosed. The result: enough space for a profitable B&B.

Slade knew how to gather the elements to bring back the building’s Victorian flair. Working with him was Phil Cowley, who ran an antiques store called the Bashful Barn in the borough. “They had the knowledge of what to do where,” says Marianne.

Incorporating history

The big front porch windows were salvaged from Reading Hospital. The smaller stained glass pieces that run along the top of those windows came from Carlisle, Cumberland County.

Furnishings throughout the 10 bedrooms are heavily Victorian-era originals. There are Eastlake and Rocco, Renaissance and Gothic revival chairs, tables, beds and dressers. The doors of elaborate carved armoires open to reveal puffy pillows, soft blankets and crisp white robes sporting the Twin Turrets logo.

Feeling a bit light-headed? Well, just take a couple of steps and you can collapse onto an authentic Victorian fainting couch that coddled a generation or two of pre-feminist women.

Being faint of heart is not something to which Marianne Deery would relate.

Growing into the job

She signed on as a housekeeper for the Twin Turrets as Slade opened the business in October 1988. Divorced after a 20-year marriage, Deery walked to work from her one-bedroom home just down the street. “I worked as a housekeeper on weekends,” she says, “and I’d babysit the antiques business he had here. One day, he [Slade] asked me if I’d consider managing. I asked him if he’d consider selling. He said ‘yes’ and I took over the business in 1994.”

The timing was opportune; she had served as a business manager for a small local printing operation and was ready for a change. “I had reached the point where I wanted to move on, and this door opened,” she says. “I saw the opportunity, and I took it.”

The purchase of the building also included the furnishings, the vintage of which she treasures. Marianne did pass, though, on a life-sized statue of Ponce de León that stood near one of the turret spaces. “He cost a lot of money, and I wasn’t so sure that he could guarantee youth,” she chuckles.

But as proprietor, she continues to run a small antiques business on site just as her predecessor did.

The right guy at the right time

Items for sale may vary from the original artwork on the walls to the actual furnishings. Some items are displayed in the main reception room of the inn, which doubles as Marianne’s mayoral office. And working with the borough’s legislative body is a sure thing. Boyertown Council President Frank Deery, Marianne’s husband of nearly 20 years, is just an arm’s length away. He partners with Marianne in the operation of the inn as well as the municipality.

Frank has devoted himself to Twin Turrets since he was downsized from his Birdsboro manufacturing job in 2009. He also devoted himself to making sure it continued to thrive after Marianne was badly injured in a car accident in the borough in 2007.

Marianne recalls those years, which bookended the great recession of 2008, as both personally and financially challenging. “That was a big change for me when the recession hit,” she says. “Before that, we catered to the business traveler. All the businesses supported me, and I felt proud that they could recommend me. But 2008 and technology, that nearly nailed me.”

But failure to cope with the challenges was never an option. Marianne flexed her marketing muscle to attract more weekend and leisure guests to offset the loss of business clients.

A table in time

Marianne points to the huge oak dining room table previously used for off-site business meetings. With meetings now often held via Skype or other Internet vehicles, the table is back to its designated dining purpose. The size of the table has grown substantially since its circa 1875 or 1895 (Marianne is uncertain) origin. A local craftsman who worked for the former Boyertown Burial Casket Co. created a series of wooden leaves to match the original table. It can now comfortably seat a dozen or more folks.

The dining room also boasts an elaborate breakfront which Marianne calls “a marriage.” Why? The answer is the joining of a secretary and desk to form the unit. There is also another “marriage” in the living room/office area.

Though Marianne has never had children of her own, it’s abundantly clear that she’s stepped into the role of matriarch of both the B&B and of the borough.

Where everyone knows your name

On the day we visited, a steady stream of citizens stopped by with concerns or just to chat. Everyone was greeted with a smile and on a first-name basis.

The same was true for the guests on that no-vacancy day. Many, if not most, of the guests were participating in the state tournament of American Legion Baseball. Some were parents who had traveled from the western part of the state, while the others were officials. During the visit, the skies had opened and many of the umpires returned to the Twin Turrets thoroughly soaked.

“We took our shoes off outside, honest,” said one of the younger umpires, displaying his evidence to Marianne. “I know, you are good guys,” she responded with a smile.

Marianne acknowledged the importance of the tournament on the Twin Turrets Facebook page: “I might mention that the umpires for the tournament stayed at Twin Turrets, and they said our fans and locals were extremely nice. We are developing a very special niche that cannot be duplicated anywhere else.”

The two Mariannes

Marianne marries her role as innkeeper with her role as mayor, happily serving as a self-described cheerleader for Boyertown. She was first elected to borough council in 1992, then a decade later became mayor. She came up with the idea of “Build a Better Boyertown” as mayor.

Marianne is proud of Boyertown’s Main Street program and the many businesses and volunteers that make it work. She points out that the borough’s program has logged more volunteer hours than all Main Street programs in the state put together.

And she’s thrilled that the Colebrookdale Railroad is revitalized, adding another gem to the crown of this community of 4,000.

She’s led the celebrations throughout the year for the borough’s 150th anniversary, and there are more to come before 2016 draws to a close.

Getting the word out

Marianne partners with local organizations such as chambers of commerce and visitors bureaus to market her inn. The Internet and sites like Facebook help spread the word. Indeed, Twin Turrets has fans worldwide.

Commanding attention in a rear first-floor wall hallway are two maps: one of the United States and the other of the world. Push pins mark the home base of guests. Indeed, pins populate points in all 50 states and on all seven continents.

All the continents?

“Yes,” Marianne replies. “There is a scientific base in Antarctica, and some of those folks stayed here.”

She invites guests to log their thoughts in journals that can be viewed by others who visit.

“I’m often touched by the stories they share, where they’ve come from, and how they feel being here,” she says.

As she speaks, she touches more history – large double doors opening to the living room and nearby windows came from a more than 300-year-old Berlin church.

The building continues to reveal some original treasures. Marianne displays a curved, painted screen used, of course, in a turret window. The European-style landscape scene depicts a castle with, you guessed it, twin turrets. To say it’s unique is an understatement. “I’d love to take it to the Antiques Road Show,” she says.

Hitting the road is something the Deerys do daily. Their Edwardian-era home is just a short walk along Philadelphia Avenue. “I say I live here, but I sleep a couple of hours up the block,” she says.

Moving on? Maybe, maybe not

At 74, Marianne acknowledges that selling the business is something she’s considering. But there’s no hurry; she’s in the market for the right buyer who will treat the building and her town as the treasures she knows they are. In the meantime, she and Frank continue to direct the path forward for both the inn and the borough.

Marianne likes to point to three paintings that decorate the walls as metaphors for her relationship with the inn. One is called The Toilers. “That was me when I started here,” she says.

Another depicts a peasant woman wearing a slightly nicer dress.

“That was the next step.”

The third, a large oil period painting of an elegant Victorian woman, greets everyone as they reach the end of the glass-enclosed front porch. “I like to think I’ve become a lady now, the lady of the house,” says Marianne.

Imagine this coming from the indisputable First Lady of Boyertown.

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