History of Our House In Milford

There once was a mother and daughter who loved to attend quilting retreats.     Their first retreat ever was in Milford, Texas in an eclectic Bed & Breakfast on Main St.  Although the amenities were few, we had sew much fun each time we were there.  The Bed & Breakfast went out of business and we were left to retreat in hotel conference rooms and church camps.  While we had fun on the retreats, the accommodations didn’t meet our needs.   The desire to have a place designed for retreating sparked a flame in us that brought us to where we are today.

Too naive to be scared, we decided if we built it they would come!  Encouraged by our close quilting friends, we started the adventure in July 2007.  After discussing our ideas with our family and other small business owners, we were fueled for the road ahead, so we thought.

Our first stop was to meet with a banker and pitch our ideas.  Even though the concept was new to her, she caught the vision immediately!  After a couple of hours of brainstorming, laughing and envisioning our future retreat center, she offered to show us some land her family owned in Milford, Texas.   Milford, Texas!?!    We knew Milford!  Some of the best times we ever had retreating were there. Taking the afternoon as a good sign we were on the right track, we immediately drove to Milford to see the land where Our House In Milford now resides.  It was beautiful… a blank slate to build our dream, or at least as much as we could afford.

That evening we went home and searched the internet for all different types of  retreat structures.  We looked at barn houses, site built houses, steel buildings, older houses to be remodeled and modular homes.  We decided to investigate modular homes.

The next day we had plans to visit a friend outside of Waco, so we made a list of all the modular home builders in the Waco area.  Ambitious to get started, our plan was to visit them all on our way back to Dallas.  As we drove to our destination, we passed a modular home sales office that wasn’t on our list.  We noted the location and decided to stop there first on our way back.

On the way home we stopped.  When we met the sales person, we explained our vision of our retreat center.  He was so excited!  He disappeared into his office and came back with a plan he had been drawing for a bed and breakfast.  He just knew someone would come along and need that plan.  That plan became the basic plan for Our House In Milford.   Leaving the office, our heads were spinning!  In two days we had found our land and our plan.  We stopped right there and gave thanks to God, asking Him never let our heads get so big that we thought we orchestrated this.

We rushed home to tell our family the good news – our retreat center was going to be a reality!

The next few months flew by.  Although Milford seemed the ideal place to build, we wanted to make sure there wasn’t some other land better suited.  We spent the next several weekends looking at every piece of land for sale in Ellis County – we always came back to the Milford land.  We had decided  – it was time to make an offer for the Milford land. Before the papers were signed, we had a website with a picture of the land with the caption “Future Site of Our House In Milford”.   No stopping now!

One of our first post on our website was

October 20, 2007 – We received our plans from engineering and we are on our way! We will open our doors in January and cannot wait to see you!

 

Once we had our bedrooms planned, the next thing to do was to make quilts for our beds.  There was no way we could ever make 33 quilts between October and January.  We brainstormed for a while and we came up with an idea.  We would ask other quilters to make quilts for our beds and in return they would be the first ones to sleep under them at Our House In Milford.  The word spread like a wild fire!  We divided our bedrooms between three local quilt shops.  We picked out a line of fabric or theme for each bedroom and asked those interested in making a quilt to go to one of the quilt stores and purchase the fabric.  Within a week all beds were spoken for and we had a waiting list.

By November we owned the land and the construction crew came and staked out the foundation.   During this time we also had our friend The Reverend Joy A. Daley come and bless the land.  It was a cold, wet day as we stood outside with our umbrellas and prayed for God to bless all those that stepped foot on our land.  Joy ended the blessing with a beautiful prayer we asked all that read our website to pray with us.

May the light and love of your Holy Spirit shine on the building of this retreat center.

Hear God’s word of blessing:

The fruit of righteousness will be peace

And the result of righteousness, tranquility and trust forever.

My people will abide in the secure dwellings

And in quiet resting places.

 

And now may Almighty God

Encircle this land with love,

Bless this space with joy,

And build this structure in peace.

Amen

 

Our prayers were answered.   January 18^th,  2008 we opened our doors to 31 of the 33 women who made the beautiful quilts that adorn our bedrooms today.