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Megin Harrington eased into a wooden chair. A life-size portrait of her hung on a wall over her left shoulder. Priceless antiques, such as the only known flag remaining from the Whiskey Rebellion, surrounded her.

She was at work. But she was home.

For the past 31 years, Harrington has operated the Century Inn, a country inn that doubles as her home, along Route 40 in the village of Scenery Hill in North Bethlehem, Washington County.

The historic inn, built in 1794 and home to one of the longest operating taverns in the country, was a popular overnight stop for stagecoaches during the late 1700s and 1800s. Some of the most prominent figures in American history stayed there, including presidents George Washington, Andrew Jackson and James Polk.

Everything about the Century Inn, from the rich hues to the precious antiques that Harrington used to decorate the various rooms, not only reflects that history but also emphasizes it.

Harrington, to be sure, has embraced it.

In Scenery Hill -- a close-knit community tucked between Washington, Pa., and Brownsville, in Fayette County -- Harrington is the matriarch.

Small businesses that paint the National Road, many of them quaint antique boutiques, rely on one another for economic success. But none serves as a draw like the Century Inn.

Harrington has welcomed countless guests into her home over the years and holds an uncanny ability to make strangers who enter the more than 200-year-old stone structure feel like family by the time they leave.

She does so with the energy of a teenager and the elegance of royalty.

"I always try to remember the first time I walked through the door," Harrington said. "I felt I was in somebody's home. It wasn't a business."

Harrington's home

Harrington's story is a winding road of love and loss.

The Churchill native leapfrogged across the country, living in New York City, San Francisco and Vail, Colo., among other places, before getting divorced and moving back home in the early 1970s.

She considered traveling around Europe. Then she met Gordon Harrington Jr.

Gordon and Mary Harrington, of Charleroi, bought the Century Inn in 1945. They operated the inn for years before moving in when Gordon Jr. went to college.

The elder Gordon Harrington was a dentist who, coincidentally, shared office space with Megin Harrington's uncle, a medical doctor.

She knew of the Harringtons and of the Century Inn, but had never been introduced to either. Until she met Gordon Jr.

"(The inn) was so charming," she remembered.

Shortly after Megin and Gordon Jr. met, Mary Harrington learned she had cancer.

Because she wanted her son, an attorney, to keep his law practice, Mary Harrington taught Megin how to run the inn.

Megin and Gordon Jr. assumed control of the inn in the mid-1970s when Mary Harrington died, five years after her husband.

Slowly, Megin Harrington put her signature on the Century Inn.

"When they bought the inn, there was no furniture here," she said, explaining that her in-laws slowly accumulated items there. "None of the china matched. None of the glasses matched.

"I realized I couldn't get away with that. I changed all the decor."

It's been an ongoing project for decades, one that she's handled mostly herself for the past 20 years.

In 1987, with the youngest of his three sons just 1 year old, Gordon Jr. boarded a small plane in Pittsburgh and headed for Charleston, W.Va. He never made it.

The plane crashed at the Charleston airport, killing Harrington and the three other passengers. Gordon Harrington Jr. was 57.

His wife was devastated.

"Just the suddenness," she said. "At the funeral people would say, 'What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?' I never thought (leaving) was an option."

She never did.

Instead, she turned to others around her for support.

She focused on the inn. She looked for ideas to decorate and furnish the place, often by frequenting antique shows, flea markets and estate sales.

"My job has been to get better, earlier antiques," she said.

Among her most prized possessions are a highboy, a tall chest of drawers that she thinks dates to 1750; a Victrola that belonged to her great-grandmother; and the Whiskey Rebellion flag, dating to the 1790s, hanging on a wall inside the inn's tavern.

She collects 100-year-old hair wreaths, made by women who took family members' hairs and weaved them to resemble flowers and leaves. The wreath then was hung on a wall in those people's honor.

Harrington also cherishes cross-stitched alphabet samplers, although they are hard to find these days, she said.

The inn incorporates elements of the Victorian era -- and three rooms inside what was once a bordello across the street also are decorated in Victorian style -- yet Harrington said she follows no particular style.

"It's pretty subjective," she said with a smile. "I'm a red person. There appears to be red in every room."

At the inn

The sun shines brightly into the Century Inn's foyer and music room, where the historic highboy sits, on this unseasonably warm Saturday in January.

That anyone besides Harrington is privy to such a magnificent sight is only a recent phenomenon.

For years, Harrington closed the inn from January to March. But last year, at the behest of executive chef Bill Dickey, Harrington decided to welcome guests year-round.

The kitchen remains closed to the public during the week in those three months, except for guests and special occasions.

The inn boasts five dining rooms, including the music room immediately to the left after walking through the front door. A stately staircase leading to the second-floor bedrooms and Harrington's third-floor living quarters is straight ahead. The McCune Saloon, which houses the Whiskey Rebellion flag, is to the right.

A hallway between the staircase and music room leads to the main dining room on the left; a small, private, gallery-style dining room to the right; and, eventually, the kitchen.

The main dining room and music room are connected. A black piano sits between them. Dozens of tables, set with red and white linens and one tall, white candle, dot the main dining room. Faded cross-stitched samplers cover the walls. A gas fireplace quietly flickers at the far end.

Through a narrow door beside the fireplace is the keeping room, the inn's original kitchen that now serves as a dining room.

The original, exposed stone floor greets visitors, as does a large stone fireplace once used for cooking. Antique cooking utensils hang from the mantel.

Beyond the keeping room is the garden room, the last dining room. Glass encloses the room, which overlooks the inn's 27 acres, including a pond and a white gazebo used for weddings.

"The original kitchen is my favorite room," Harrington said. "We like to keep as much of the original as possible."

The current kitchen houses countless storage spaces, refrigerators and two large electric ovens, a sausage press and a meat grinder.

"You don't find these around anymore," Dickey said, pointing to the press and grinder.

Nor is a kitchen like Dickey's commonplace.

Warm, homemade rolls and breads are made from scratch every day. So, too, are desserts and salad dressings. Herbs that Dickey uses in meals are grown on site.

Dickey works 65 to 70 hours, six days a week. He takes pride in every dish he prepares and particularly enjoys the Duck Brackenridge. Duck and crab cakes are the inn's signature dishes.

But the menu only begins there.

Pan-seared scallops prove to be an excellent choice to start an enjoyable, romantic candlelit dinner, while rich, creamy peanut soup sprinkled with tiny chunks of peanuts -- "Thomas Jefferson's own recipe," as it's billed -- is a must-try.

Lemon sorbet is offered after the soup, to prepare the palate for the main course.

Moist duck rests on a bed of rice pilaf. A steak and lobster special is equally pleasing, both in presentation and taste.

"I like to have my hand on every single plate that goes out," said Dickey, who makes a point of greeting customers at their tables. "It's really a good feeling when someone compliments your meal, and you had everything to do with making it. It's very rewarding."

An assortment of desserts and a host of red and white wines are available.

Afterward, guest can enjoy a cordial, mixed drink or beer in McCune Saloon, where two more gas fireplaces, a dark-wood bar and the tavern's original overhead wood beams create a cozy atmosphere.

Three eye-catching items -- a painting of the inn circa late 1700s, the portrait of Megin Harrington painted by a friend, and a "Jan. 15, 1920" sign -- are some of the signatures of the bar.

"The last day before Prohibition," Harrington said with a smile, explaining the date.

Upstairs, six suites, all decorated differently and named after famous leaders who stayed at the inn, are available to rent. The Stephen Hill room, named after the inn's first owner, is the largest, with a working fireplace, two beds and a separate sitting room overlooking the grounds.

All but one suite has a working gas fireplace.

An outdoor hot tub sits on a deck off the second floor.

Harrington rents three more spacious and exquisitely decorated suites across the street, in a building that was an 1850s bordello called Zephanie Riggle's House of Entertainment, named after its onetime madam.

Historic value

Look no further than who's who in American history to grasp the significance of the Century Inn in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Besides presidents Washington, Jackson and Polk, Frenchman and Revolutionary War figure Marquis de Lafayette and Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna also stayed at the inn. So did Albert Gallatin, the nation's first Treasury secretary, Whiskey Rebellion leader David Bradford and Indian Chief Black Hawk.

Thus, Harrington's desire to keep as much of the original structure as it was years ago.

It hasn't always been easy opening her home to strangers, particularly when her sons were young. But the inn's historic value, and the pride Harrington feels for it, made her decision worthwhile.

"I was more aware of it when the kids were little," Harrington said. "You always had to be aware of noise. I always raised them knowing we were just caretakers."

That was, in part, because she said she never knew how long she could maintain the inn. She didn't want her sons to become attached to a home they might leave.

Twenty years later, her sons are grown and Harrington remains. Her middle son, Tyler, recently moved back into the inn. Her other sons, Chip, 25, and Brooks, 19, live nearby.

Like Stephen Hill, Megin Harrington will be forever fondly linked to the Century Inn.

Her longtime guidance of, and genuine care for, the inn has earned her such distinction.

Not to mention the unforgettable experience she provides for her visitors.

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