Cafe Maplethorpe Blog :: PEI Restaurant

This has been a busy summer at Maplethorpe, with 3 wedding activities taking place just in the past week!

Michael and John, a same-sex couple from New York, traveled to Prince Edward Island to be married in Canada. We were thrilled that they chose Maplethorpe for their wedding location!  We discussed a possible outdoor service, debating the possibilities of battling either rain or the famous Bedeque mosquitoes. It turned out to be rainy, so Michael and John had a lovely, intimate service in the parlor and we were all happy to share their special day.

John and Michael, Wedding Commissioner, Jim and Dianna

Fred and Teena had a big wedding in Summerside and asked the Maplethorpe staff to create a cake for the reception. It turned out beautifully…even if we do say so ourselves! The three tiers consisted of a pound cake on the top, a marble cake in the middle and a chocolate cake anchoring the bottom, all covered with pink buttercream frosting. The brown ribbon and fresh flowers from Summerside’s Kelly’s Flowers matched Teena and Fred’s wedding color perfectly!

Teena and Fred's Wedding Cake

Jessica and Daniel were married on the beach in Lower Bedeque, then had their wedding dinner and reception here. It was a great day for a wedding, perfect weather, and a great supper for 27 guests after. We served a beautiful salad with veggies pulled from our garden just minutes before service. The salad was followed by Confederation Cove mussels, steamed in white wine. Half of the guests had seafood pie (thanks, Captain Cook’s for the fantastic local seafood) and half had chicken breast in a delicious sauce of Rol-Land Farms mushrooms and fresh ADL cream. The wedding party enjoyed a fantastic chocolate-banana wedding cake with Maplethorpe homemade ice cream.

And That’s Not All!

The B&B rooms are full, and the lunches and supper at Maplethorpe are also crowded this summer season. We just love taking care of our local customers as well as visitors to Prince Edward Island! (But sometimes we feel like Santa’s elves on Christmas Eve–run off our pointy, curled feet!) The weather has been perfect for all kids of outdoor adventures and we have been slipping out to the beach every couple of days.

One of the toughest aspects of running a business in an historic building involves repairs. They just don’t make things the same in 2009 as they did in 1860! Do we try to repair the existing plaster or remove it and replace with gyprock? Do we pay someone to custom fabricate wooden trim pieces in sizes no longer available or cobble something together that looks “almost” the same as the old stuff? You get the picture…every repair involves consideration, debate and lots more cash than expected. And there are lots of repairs!

When you walk in the front door of Maplethorpe, you enter a small foyer. It is seperated from the rest of the house by huge French doors–about 8 feet tall. They are beautiful, but one would hardly notice them because they have always been propped open. This is because of the glass, or lack of glass, in the doors.

When we bought the place, one door had pieces of etched glass, broken but duct-taped in place. The other door was without any glass, just a giant hole. For safety’s sake we removed the broken glass and filled each door panel with a custom-cut piece of clear glass. We never really liked the clear glass and it didn’t take long for one window panel to get cracked, so we were back to one giant hole and one clear glass door. The place where we bought the oversized pieces of clear glass no longer sells glass retail. S0, we propped the doors open and tried not to look at them while we wondered what to do.

Jim to the rescue!

During one of his winters spent teaching high school math in Las Vegas, out of boredom he took a class in creating stained glass. By golly, he learned a few things! Over the summer he created a design, determined his color-scheme, and bought the glass he needed to make stained glass panels for the doors. Then he locked himself in the garage. We didn’t see him for weeks.

Then on July 1, out he came from his workshop, carrying the new window panels. They are beautiful! We are now enjoying closing the doors and letting colored light stream into the hallway. I think even Major Wright, original builder and first occupant of Maplethorpe, would be proud.

Installing stained glass panel in French door

Maplethorpe's new old doors