PITTSFIELD, Maine — Mo and Monica Pollard have traveled the world together for three decades, making friends and acquaintances in countries around the world.
Now that Mo has retired from his 32-year Navy career aboard submarines and the couple has settled in Pittsfield, they want a slower pace than before without giving up their passion for meeting new people.
So last month, not long after finishing construction on a pristine house set back from U.S. Route 2, they decided to open their new home as the M&M Bed and Breakfast.
“In the Navy we did lots of entertaining,” said Mo Pollard recently among the granite countertops and stainless steel fixtures in his kitchen — where he usually takes care of the “breakfast” side of the equation (making a “great” breakfast is something else Pollard learned in the Navy, he said).
“It’s so much fun always meeting new people,” he said. “We enjoy nice conversation and sharing different views on life and our experiences.”
Pollard was set to retire in 2006, so he and his wife bought 40 acres of prime hilltop real estate, part of a former 600-acre dairy farm. Then the Navy offered one more three-month assignment, this time in Hawaii.
“Someone’s got to do it,” said Pollard with a grin. At the end of his career, he was the force master chief for all of the Navy’s subs in the Pacific Ocean. Monica Pollard is a special education teacher at Skowhegan Area High School.
The Pollards are from north of Pittsfield — he from Orono, she from Old Town — and they have owned land in Cambridge for several years. All of their land — in Pittsfield and Cambridge — supports their other scheme: growing Christmas trees, which according to Mo Pollard, is a lifelong dream. Their first crop, planted be-side the bed and breakfast, won’t be ready for a couple of years.
The idea of starting a bed and breakfast came basically on a whim. One of the contractors who built their home suggested it, and for an investment of a couple thousand dollars for top-quality linen, a website and a few commercial kitchen tools, the Pollards jumped in. There was no business plan or market study involved because, after all, the business is more of a hobby than a livelihood.
“There was a moment when we said, ‘Do we really want to open our home up to the public?’” said Pollard. “But I’m retired. This is what I do.”
The M&M Bed and Breakfast, located just west of the intersection between Phillips Corner Road and Route 2-Canaan Road, has two rooms priced at $75 or $85 per night, each of which has a full attached bathroom. There is no sign out front because the Pollards prefer that guests make reservations.
For information, visit www.bbonline.com or call 487-8150.
