History is everywhere you look, but when you step into the Densler House and Hearts Desire Tea Room in Wilsonville, you cannot help but fall in love with it.

This beautiful Victorian home was restored from 1879. It is certainly bigger than it appears when first approaching the cozy white cottage. The now seven and a half-room house was originally a four room, “L” shaped cottage.

Like the old capital of Montgomery, the Densler House has hand-grained wainscoting. In the 1800s, it was common to hire artists to paint anything you desired for a place to stay and food to eat.

At the Densler House, you can still easily recognize where the wood was painted to look even more exotic than it actually was.

“Can you imagine up to four people living in this one room?” Diane Moore asked as we approached a small room, which once served as a boarding house to a family during World War II.

After the Denslers first sold the home, it went to the Smith family, to the Jacksons, then to the Blacks (a Densler daughter), who sold it to the Weldons.

The Moores then bought the house from the Weldon family in 2000, and restored it to its original architectural design.

This same year, the Densler House was put on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.

The Moores also own two other locations — the Wedding Chapel, also located in Wilsonville, and the Columbiana Inn. The Columbiana Inn currently holds receptions, parties and showers, and the Wedding Chapel opened in October for wedding receptions.

“It’s worth all the work you put into it when you see the smiles on their faces,” Moore said, as we looked through pictures of the tea parties she has hosted. A picture of a man on one knee shows there have even been proposals made in this picturesque setting.

“He was so nervous” she said.

Moore confessed she didn’t have a single teapot when she first started this, but was inspired when she and her husband visited Magnolia Ivey in Columbus, Ga.

“We just get to be girly girls” she explained.

Young children have fun dressing up and being treated, but unsurprisingly young adults to older adults keep a big smile on their faces too as they converse over steaming tea cups.

These beautiful homes welcome ladies as they travel near and far to put on their Sunday dress, dust off their high heels, and even flaunt an oversized sun hat.

“The tea is good, but it’s all about having a good time with family and friends” Moore said.

Kennedy Tolbert is the new community columnist for Wilsonville. She can be reached at kennedytolbert@bellsouth.net.