The home at 271 Beach Street was built by Ivor Erwin, an insurance businessman, in 1940. The original house had three bedrooms, two baths and a detached single car garage. After the war it was sold to a family who had moved to Ashland from Arkansas-a Colonel Preston Ballard Waterbury. In the early 1950s the Trinity Episcopal Church bought the house for its rectory and it was home for at least 4 rectors and their families. The Reverend John Thompson and his wife Shirley had two children born while they lived here. The long time neighbors remember that Reverend Thompson also made very good beer!

In the 1970s the house was painted a vivid plum and green and became notoriously known as the purple house. Kay Shauger bought the house in some disrepair in the late 1980s and began the renovation process. Dale Swire bought it from Kay in 1989 to convert it to a bed and breakfast which he named the Victory House. He furnished it in 1940s style and included much military memorabilia. The reading room was outfitted like a USO with a classic Seaburg jukebox. Dale rented the two upstairs bedrooms who shared a bath, then he converted the garage to owners quarters so as to add the downstairs bedroom and bath to the bed and breakfast. He then added the deck to serve breakfast during the summer and finally he added the annex.

Brian and Shirley Wallace bought the Victory House in 1996 and began another major remake. They refurbished and redecorated everything, converted the baths so they were all en suite, remodeled the kitchen, added the owners quarters (Dale’s room has become an office) and did major work in the garden. Since they are British they renamed the house Ashland’s English Country Cottage.

We (mother and son team of Jan and Raliegh Grantham) bought The English Country Cottage in 2000 and (since we are not British), renamed it Ashland's Tudor House. We added only the paintings the first season.

Since then, Jan created quilts for the beds in every room-eight handmade quilts in five years. We painted the common rooms during the 2002-3 off season. Starting in November 2005 we remodeled the owners' quarters extensively to accommodate Raliegh's new family, Julie and Roxanne. In 2006, Raliegh and his friend Dan demolished the old deck and rebuilt a bigger and better breakfast-room deck.  Most recently, in 2011, all the guest rooms got new paint and new bathroom floors in three of them.