‘Twas the night before Christmas and,
Oh, What a house!
Former Fairhaven B&B celebrates the holidays in grand fashion

by Maria McLeod/ photos by Peter James

Stepping into Kitty and Terry Todd’s three-story, 7,000-square-foot Victorian home is to enter a holiday wonderland so spectacular, you may think you’ve entered a dream.
Actually, you have.
“When we came and looked at this place, everybody told us not to get it,” Terry said of what was then a largely unfinished renovation across from Bellingham’s Fairhaven Middle School. “But I had a vision of what this place would look like at Christmas.”
Sixteen years later, Terry, 71, and Kitty, 68, point out ornaments on their 14-foot Christmas tree, decorated from bottom to top with delicate white German statis flowers, rows and rows of lights and all variety of ornaments, including Terry’s favorite – 48 miniature wooden nutcrackers.
The Christmas tree stands on top of a 14-by-16 oak dance floor on their home’s second floor. It is surrounded by lavish antiques, such as signed Tiffany lamps, a Steuben glass chandelier that once belonged in a former governor’s mansion in Illinois, and a marble fireplace that once belonged, according to Terry, to “the wealthiest man in Montana.”
The dance floor, which Terry made himself, right down to milling the wood, is in the unique shape of a webbed cross. At one end of their grand room, two 125-pound, 6-foot tall wooden nutcrackers stand guard on either side of the second-floor window. Outside the windows, one of the home’s four balconies features a life-sized nativity set.
The second-floor ceiling includes a cutout section, mirroring the shape of the dance floor and exposing the third floor ceiling, 18 feet above the dance floor. The top of the Christmas tree brushes up against the bottom of an antique Italian Morano glass chandelier, suspended from the third-floor ceiling. The chandelier hangs from the center of a fresco painting where winged cherub angels fly in a blue sky. Two of the angels feature the faces of Kitty and Terry Todd. One angel is extending his hand to the other.
“See these two,” Kitty said. “That’s supposed to be Terry, asking me to come down and dance with him.”
Terry purchased the home in 1990 from Fairhaven developer Ken Imus as a 32nd wedding anniversary present for Kitty. Imus had intended the 12th Street home to serve as a multi-room, showpiece bed and breakfast at the entrance to historic Fairhaven, less than a mile from Chuckanut Drive. When residential zoning restrictions didn’t allow Imus to offer more than two rooms as the B&B, he decided to sell.
At that time, a series of renovation efforts had transformed the 1908 bungalow into a three-story Victorian home, complete with a turret. The original home remained as the first floor, but the renovations above it were not more than a façade.
Terry took Kitty to see it prior to making the purchase. Without the internal staircases in place, Kitty had to climb up a ladder to survey the upper floors. She was looking at the bare studs—no internal walls, no electricity, no plumbing—just the shell of a home. Terry, who had promised Kitty a new home, assured her it was OK if she didn’t want it.
“I knew his brilliance,” said Kitty. “I knew what this man could do. So I said to him, ‘You may think I’m crazy, but I want it.’”

Divine inspiration
There may not have been a couple more well suited to becoming the home’s new owners. Together the Todds had purchased, renovated, lived in and/or rented at least 20 properties.
“I bought old houses, rewired them, and re-plumbed them,” Terry said. “I did all the carpentry work myself.”
In order to do the renovations necessary to make their Fairhaven home livable, Terry would work all day with help of an assistant. He didn’t work with an interior decorator or architect, but, instead, followed his vision.
“They ask me who designed the house, and I always say it was designed by red wine,” Terry said. “We’d work until 11, sit back, have a glass of red wine and plan the next day’s work.”
In addition to the properties they renovated, the Todds also had a series of other successful businesses — Classic Travel, Sunset Burgers, Classic Gas — in the area, and a history of entrepreneurial endeavors on both sides of their families.
No strangers to hard work, both Kitty and Terry descend from industrious Bellingham families. Kitty is the daughter of a Yugoslavian fisherman, Tony Kink, a purse seiner who helped begin Bellingham’s commercial fishing trade in the 1920s. He died when Kitty was 15. She continued her schooling, but also took on other jobs, such as waiting tables and teaching dance to support herself and her mother.
“Back then, you did what you had to,” said Kitty.
Kitty, whose maiden name is Kink, opened her first business, Kitty Kink’s School of Dance, on Forest Street in 1955 when she was a junior at Bellingham High School. She rented space for her dance studio from the Eagle’s Lodge.
Terry, a third-generation Bellingham resident, descends from ancestors who built Bellingham’s first court house and put in the sidewalks on F-Street, among other projects.
Together the Todds have owned, operated and/or leased approximately 30 Bellingham businesses, including their two-bedroom, two-bath Fairhaven Bed & Breakfast, which included a kitchen, formal living and dining rooms. The B&B occupied their first floor from 1994-2005. Although it wasn’t their original intention to open the B&B, they found that the home drew people to it.

A knock at the door
“We’d be downstairs, and people would knock at the door and ask if this was where they were staying,” Kitty said. “Our friends who already had a B&B said, ‘you’ve got a great location.’ ”
The B&B was successful, drawing visitors from as far away as Japan, Germany, and England. Although their marketing was, according to Terry, “90 percent word-of-mouth and location,” they drew guests of notoriety as well, such as former Seattle SuperSonics announcer Bob Blackburn, Christian music star Susan Ashton, and NFL pro-kicker Todd Peterson.
The showpiece of the B&B, however, is a special relic of old Bellingham — an 8-foot tall, 5-foot wide fireplace, featuring a darkly stained 1856 oak mantel with a rectangular mirror above the mantle ledge. Oak columns flank either side, from hearth to the top of the mantel. Originally it had been part of the Elm Street Roth home, which was built by Captain Roeder for his son-in-law and family. One of Bellingham’s finest historic homes, it was torn down in 1956 when efforts to move it failed. The fireplace and mantel were spared and donated to the Catholic Church. According to Terry, the church gave the piece to Imus with the intention of returning it to a grand home.
For Kitty, who grew up near the Roth home, seeing the fireplace for the first time in many years evoked strong memories. “It was so special,” Kitty said. “Every Easter the Roths invited neighborhood kids in to have cookies and juice. I remembered that fireplace.”
The Todds have discontinued the B&B to spend more time with each other, which they found more possible when Terry quit coaching football full-time after 20 plus years. Known fondly as “Coach Todd,” his career included serving as an assistant coach for Western Washington University, Bellingham High School, and Squalicum High School. He still coaches part-time, focusing on kickers and punters.
Although the Todds have cut back, they have yet to fully retire. Currently the Todds own and operate Sunset Car Wash, on Sunset Avenue, and they lease several other businesses in the same area, including Hawaiian BBQ, Chevron Gas Station, and Stop-n-Go Coffee. The oldest of their three grown sons, also named Terry, 47, serves as their general manager.

Spreading Christmas cheer
If their business ventures don’t keep the Todds busy, the holiday season does. After spending six weeks decorating, the Todds, who have enough close friends to send out over 100 Christmas cards a year, begin spreading Christmas cheer, hosting several gatherings.
In addition to their spectacular 14-foot Christmas tree, guests can marvel over the Christmas train, which circles the tree on a track built into the cutout between the second floor ceiling and third-floor. Santa, the train’s conductor, lets out a robust, “Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas” between whistle blows. On the opposite side of the tracks, a winterscape, complete with drifts of cotton snow and a moving ski lift, is in constant motion. On the floor below the tree is a miniature Christmas village features tiny children on moving sleds and people skating on frozen ponds.
Annual Christmas parties include hosting the WWU football team’s seniors, anywhere from 10 – 18 hearty young men, who, according to Terry, love to eat Kitty’s “company potatoes,” and “layered chocolate” desert. Other gatherings include their 30 Sunset Car Wash employees, the Fairhaven Association, their Bellingham High School friends, and, of course, their family, which includes their three sons, Terry, Rock, 45, and Rick, 41, their daughters-in-law and their seven grandchildren.
When asked if they’re done buying Christmas decorations, Terry and Kitty look at each other and smile. The truth is, they always say they’re done, then, inevitably, they see something new they have to bring home.
“He’ll see something he wants, and I’ll see something I want,” Kitty said.
Terry, chuckling, finishes his wife’s thought, “We’ll look at each other and say, ‘well, Merry Christmas.’”

In addition to renovating the home, Kitty and Terry have owned and operated a number of successful Whatcom County Businesses, including Sunset Car Wash and Classic Travel.



The centerpiece of the home is a 14-foot Christmas tree that extends from the second story to the third.



Soldiers guard the home’s south entrance.



A special chess set is one of many holiday-themed items in the house.