Thurston House Bed and Breakfast

Thurston House Bed and Breakfast occupies an 1885 Queen Anne Victorian home on eight acres overlooking Lake Eulalia in Maitland, tucked into a quiet residential pocket just off Lake Avenue. The house began as a winter retreat built for Cyrus Brooks Thurston, a Minnesota businessman who bought land near Lake Maitland in the early 1880s and used the property for citrus groves as well as a family getaway. The home passed through different owners over the following century before it was restored and opened to overnight guests in 1991 under innkeepers Carole and Joe Ballard, who ran it for thirty years. Beverly Fuller took over as owner and innkeeper in the fall of 2021 and continues to run the inn as an independent, owner managed business rather than as part of any hotel brand or franchise.

The inn has three guest rooms, each with its own bathroom and its own character. The Cubbedge Room looks out over a working perennial garden and herb beds and has a queen cast iron bed. The Hirsch Room is the largest of the three, sits closest to the sleeping porch, and keeps its original claw foot tub. The O’Heir Room has a bay window facing the front lawn and Lake Eulalia and tends to be the room repeat guests request by name. Every stay includes a full cooked breakfast served between 8 and 10 in the morning, with dishes such as eggs Florentine and blueberry bread pudding, plus fresh juice sourced from a local citrus grower. The grounds include a wraparound porch, a certified wildlife habitat garden, and two Tesla charging stations, along with free Wi-Fi throughout the house.

Beyond overnight stays, Thurston House runs a small cooking school on site, with hands on classes taught by Fuller alongside a visiting French chef. The multi day culinary package pairs cooking instruction with lodging in the historic home, and the inn also hosts smaller seasonal events such as afternoon tea and holiday weekends aimed at local guests as well as overnight visitors.

Because it sits on Lake Avenue near the Maitland Art Center and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum, the inn works well as a base for exploring both the immediate neighborhood and the wider Winter Park and Orlando area. Downtown Orlando is roughly ten minutes away, Park Avenue in Winter Park is about five minutes, and the theme park corridor is closer to half an hour, so guests get a residential, lake front setting without giving up easy access to the region’s better known attractions.

Given the age of the house, Thurston House is not set up for young children, and the property asks that guests be twelve or older. Pets are not accommodated and the entire building, including the porches, is smoke free. Rates vary by room and season and are handled through the inn’s own booking system rather than posted as a single flat nightly price, so guests should expect to see the final total at checkout on the website. For anyone looking for an actual bed and breakfast experience in this part of Orange County rather than a standard hotel room, Thurston House remains one of the few of its kind still operating independently in the immediate Maitland area.