Keeping with history A chalkboard help-wanted sign posted by the open front door attracted Sherette Sudler to apply.
"This is going to be great," she said. "I was born and raised in Odessa. I love Odessa, and this will add a whole lot to the town."
But it has taken a lot of doing and a unique rezoning.  Odessa Mayor Kathleen Harvey said town leaders had to consider the future of the historic enclave after Winterthur closed it in 2003 cuts. The Sharp family, which had given the buildings to Winterthur, set up the Historic Odessa Foundation to reopen them.  "We worked very hard to look at the stabilization of that museum and looking forward," Harvey said. Knowing the foundation can't live on income from tour groups and individual admissions alone, it created a new zoning category -- nonprofit estate district. It allows a restaurant if the building stays nonprofit and its use advances the nonprofit's mission.  So that's how a new restaurant can open outside Odessa's commercial district along U.S. 13.  The tavern will enhance Odessa's "walkability," Harvey said, with residents being able to walk there for lunch and dinner. "We're looking forward to it opening," she said.  But first, there was a building to restore. Long vacant, the site had been used for Winterthur exhibits and to display art owned by the late Sewell C. Biggs. It had boarded windows, carpeted walls and floor carpet -- all of which had to go.  Buckson called it a "nerve-racking adventure." But most discoveries weren't bad: "It was in better shape than expected." 

Rebuilding an era  Renovation spanned about a year as Restore 'N' More of Manheim, Pa., worked on various historic parts and other jobs that included adding wheelchair access, a fire escape and a kitchen.  To replace a 1980s' kitchen, help was recruited from Paul Wise, who began the University of Delaware's restaurant studies program.  "It's perfect," Ashby said.  There also were fine points, such as replacing long-lost shutters that were copied so well guests may circle the building twice before being able to spot the replacements. Longtime mason Roger Rullo did "amazing brickwork," Buckson said, and painting by Scotty & Son was "beyond compare."
Then there was the floor -- "100 years of neglect," she said, with a glance at its now-gleaming planks.
The process was slow out of necessity. All renovation, including upstairs -- for weddings, parties and meetings -- was pay-as-you-go.  "We didn't do anything until we had the funds," Buckson said.  But support from foundations and the community was "remarkable" -- and reassuring as the foundation took on the effort "at a time when a lot of professionals said it had no future," she said.  Already, the site gets raves.  "It's gorgeous," Harvey said.  "Just beautiful," said Sudler, who applied for a job with friend Susan Riggs of Warwick, Md. "This is a place you can bring your family, and we don't have anything like that in Odessa -- due time for it," Sudler said.
"A great place," Riggs said, "... going to get tons of business."  Back in time After studying tavern bars of the period, Buckson and others created a historically accurate one for Cantwell's Tavern.  It's a massive work in walnut with odd, lifting gates. "That's the way bars were," Buckson explained. "When they closed up, the gates came down and they locked it up to prevent theft."  Guests also will get an eyeful as Buckson picks artifacts and maps from the foundation collection to reproduce for display.  The tavern will echo the era when Odessa was named Cantwell's Bridge, a river port with a hospitality industry big enough to support five inns.  "It will give a feeling not only for the building but of the village as it was," Buckson said.  The site also will use an adaptation of its original paint, scientifically documented, and carpet "in the flavor of the period," she said. Descendants of the Douglas family of Middletown, which once owned the site, gave a table to be among its historic furniture.  Buckson, who teaches hearth cooking, said historic-recipe foods will be local and distinctive -- such as salmagundi, a Colonial cobb-type salad, snapper soup that first used local turtles and Appoquinimink cakes, "our very own recipe for beaten biscuits."  But the menu, with $15 to $25 entrees, is to offer such variety -- brick-oven pizza, sandwiches, snacks -- residents can pop in for beers and burgers after work, gather with friends regularly or stop in for drinks or coffee. "Something for everyone," Ashby said.  From idea to detail, Cantwell's Tavern is designed as a community focus and a destination. Market research found MOT has a lot of franchise eateries but "no place anything like this," Ashby said.  Ashby -- who hired UD grad, Hotel du Pont alum and Cordon Bleu-trained Dan Sheridan as chef -- said he is thrilled to be setting the menu and getting supplies, including a chafing dish just right for dishes from history.  Buckson now is working on alfresco appeal: "Our outdoor dining will be in the old stable yard, so it will be very charming," she said, and its fence is "board-and-split-rail, documented to an 18th-century watercolor."