This was one of the best B+B experiences I have ever had. I recommend looking at their website (it's the first two words in the name of the place, dot com) because it shows how beautiful everything is.

The property: It's a working farm that the owners' family has run for generations. The farm itself is beautiful - rolling hills, apple orchards, herds of cows and sheep and pigs. We spent a good hour tossing fallen apples over the fence so the cows could munch on them. There's a stream, and different paths you can walk. And at night it's completely quiet except for the animal sounds.

Rooms: The rooms are in the 200-year-old farmhouse, which is in the National Register of Historic Places. But unlike what I've heard about a lot of places in the region, the building is in pristine condition and completely up to date. Our room was enormous with a (perfectly firm) king four-post bed and a fireplace and huge windows. We picked a room with its own private bath across the hall, because of the king bed (the other room available that night has an en-suite bath but a queen bed). I thought I might mind crossing the hall, but they provide these fantastic comfy (and again, pristine) robes and slippers, so you can just pad across the hall and take a bath in the 100-year-old clawfoot tub or in the fantastic hot shower. Since there are only two other rooms on that floor (the fourth is in a separate building), no one was ever around when we walked out. We peeked at the other rooms in the main house and they were all great.

Food: Breakfast was delicious, with about 6 different items, all homemade and including ingredients from the farm like fresh apples and blueberries.

Hosts: Ruth was incredibly nice and helpful and made us feel comfortable without feeling like we were intruding in someone else's space, which some B+Bs can feel like. There are nice touches all over, like fancy chocolates in the hallway. And Ruth's advice re: dinner restaurants was honest and accurate.

Location: We were visiting Harper's Ferry and all the inns there were full. It turns out this place is only about 15 minutes away, and great as a base for the region.

About an hour from metropolitan D.C. -- yet a world away! Admittedly, it is not easy to find this B&B, off a series of winding, one-lane country roads. But it is worth any effort, especially for the city-weary. Located on a 400-acre working farm, innkeeper Ruth Pritchard and her daughter spent the better part of a decade painstakingly restoring the original plantation house that has been in the family for eight generations. From the sign on the road, it's over a half-mile to the house, beyond endless apple orchards, grazing cattle and sheep, past a creek with a couple of wrought-iron chairs set invitingly on the banks. Once checked in, my husband and I took our bottle of wine down to the spot by the creek, kicked off our shoes, and lazily sipped and slid into the standstill simplicity of the place, while butterflies floated overhead and deer browsed just yards from us. Heaven. Our blue-themed room (The Wellford) featured a king canopy bed, tall windows, and TWO working gas fireplaces -- one in the bedroom and one in the spacious bathroom, with its clawfoot tub and separate stall shower. No TV set in any of the three guest rooms (there is one in the downstairs parlor) but it would have been sacrilege to switch it on anyway. Breakfast is sublime: fresh eggs from the farm, sausage or bacon from their own pigs, fruit compote with fresh-picked peaches, plums and cherries, applesauce that was hanging on a tree two hours earlier. Everything raised or grown on the farm is organic, free of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, antibiotics and preservatives, and many of their natural products are available for purchase at the "store" next to the main house. (The small, two-story brick building was originally the farm's schoolhouse. A sister structure on the other side of the main house, once the summer kitchen and servants' quarters, is now guest lodging.) Sitting on the porch at night, the black sky is bedazzled with stars, the only glitter in this unspolied land. Truly a languid journey back in time -- and one not to be missed. Ditch the city bustle and GO for an idyllic respite from modern life!