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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - One local businessman has turned his difficulty selling a beautiful three-storey house on Niven Drive into his advantage, transforming the house into a spacious bed and breakfast that opened earlier this year.

Gerry Borschneck, owner of Eagles Nest Bed and Breakfast on Niven Drive, says the kitchen and common room area of his newly-furnished bed and breakfast is his favourite place because of the mingling that goes on between guests. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

Gerry Borschneck, owner of Yellowknife home building company Premium Homes Ltd., completed construction on the house a year ago but the right seller never came calling.

"A number of people came to look at the house, but for whatever reason, nobody ended up making an offer," said Borschneck, who started Premium Homes during a housing boom in the late 1980s.

Rather than give up, Borschneck - a man used to moving his focus from one property after another - decided to stay focused on the Niven Drive house, opting to open it as a bed and breakfast last May.

"It seemed like a good opportunity," said Borschneck, walking through the hardwood floor halls on the main floor of the house.

The house is furnished with $20,000 in new furniture from Edmonton as well as framed photographs uniquely of the North, such as one of a grizzly-polar-bear hybrid photographed in Cambridge Bay.

He has settled into his new position comfortably. He said he likes dealing with the various types of people who find their way to his place, which is listed on Bed and Breakfasts of Canada, a website listing bed and breakfasts throughout the country.

According to Borschneck, 60 per cent of his guests are business travellers from the south while the remaining 40 per cent of customers are tourists.

That latter category includes some Japanese aurora visitors who were overjoyed to find their top-floor room included a wide window offering a splendid view of the Yellowknife sky and nearby Great Slave Lake.

"They could look right out the window and see the aurora," said Borschneck. "I could tell they were happy because they were constantly giving me the thumbs-up. They stayed up until 1:30 in the morning."

The open-concept house has four guest rooms, a large kitchen and a common room with television and a coffee table replete with books about the Yellowknife-area diamond mines.

"I like for people to learn about the city," said Borschneck. "They're usually interested anyway."

Sometimes Borschneck will even take guests out for a drive himself, showing them the usual landmarks such as Old Town.