Bed, breakfast serves up a great vista

Jim Schreiner was 25 years old and looking for a place to settle down as he cruised the country on his Goldwing motorcycle. It was fall 1978 and the George Strait fan from Brush, Colo., stopped in Troy to gas up. Roy Richards was operating the old station where a Sinclair sits today and chatted up the young man.

“His kindness melted me,” Schreiner, 60, said. “I had the attitude of looking for a place to go. He told me they were going to start a silver mine and said the town could use someone like me. I’ve been a licensed general contractor since I was 19.”

By the spring of 1979, Schreiner had packed his things in Lake Tahoe and found a place in Troy. Three years later he was drinking a beer in the Hellroaring Saloon & Eatery in the Yaak after racing rafts with his buddy Dennis. A woman walked in and tripped on her sandal. Jim helped up Joyce, and June will mark 30 years of marriage. This year also makes it 15 years since the couple bought the land where the Double J Bed & Breakfast stands.

The land with the stunning view over the Kootenai River, located just west of the intersection of highways 56 and 2, stood bare when the Schreiners bought it. Today, the log building represents the couple’s retirement plan. Three rooms, each with access to the back balcony and covered by eight-foot Knotty Alder doors, in the lower level are available by reservation to private groups hosting events. Paintings by Terrel Jones, a former art teacher in Troy, plaster the walls throughout the building that has hosted 11 weddings.

A karaoke machine sits on a desk in a corner of the great room beside a large projector screen. An accomplished singer, Jim used to sing for the Centerline Band. Before all those shows like The Voice and American Idol became a sensation, he won a competition that sent him to Nashville to record four songs. He sang songs by John Dunnigan, a Montana singer self-described as a combination of Jimmy Buffet, James Taylor and John Prine. The songs never went far, but it was a fun trip.

He takes karaoke seriously.

“The word is Japanese,” Schreiner said. “It’s pronounced kah-rah-oh-ke. I ran the first karaoke machine in Montana, in Condon. In America, it really all started with ‘Sing along with Mitch Miller.’ The Japanese just took off with it.”

Leading a tour through the building, Schreiner proudly points out the wheelchair-accessible showers in his guest rooms. He will soon get the building’s elevator licensed for public use.

Although the couple’s original dream was opening a steakhouse with Jim doing music, plans changed when the permitting process grew too onerous.

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” Jim said while eating eggs he cooked in his licensed commercial kitchen. “This is great.”

Joyce works four 10-hour shifts every week as a dental office manager in Bigfork. She is typically back in the Double J by Thursday night and stays until Sunday night. Jim keeps busy during the week working contracted jobs.

 “I’d like to keep the place for my kids,” Jim said, referring to his three adult boys and one adult girl. “It’s comfortable here.”