Victorian homes and quaint motor hotels will be decked out this month in holiday cheer, offering a warm welcome to visitors looking for cozy lodging in western Nevada County bed-and-breakfast inns.

The Elam Biggs House on Colfax Avenue typifies the six lodges of the association Historic Inns of Grass Valley and Nevada City; they all offer travelers a slower pace of life.

The goal of the association is for travelers to come as strangers and leave as friends, innkeepers Barbara and Peter Franchino said. A Christmas candlelight tour they offer this week and next gives local a chance to make friends, too (see box).

“It's funny, the discussions you'll hear around our breakfast tables,” said Peter Franchino. “People will come from opposite ends of the state, and all of a sudden they'll go, ‘Oh, you know old Fred. What's he doing now?'”

A stay at any of the six bed-and-breakfasts is a good way to learn the history of this slice of the Gold Country, given five of them were built in the 1800s, the Franchinos said.

The Elam Biggs is decorated like a grandmother's home during the holidays, with stuffed bears reclined in antique chairs and wreaths hung next to family photographs.

The inns include the Elam Biggs House, Annie Horan's, Swan Levine House and Victorian Lady Inn in Grass Valley, and Piety Hill Cottages and Red Castle Inn Historic Lodgings in Nevada City.

The association, founded in 1986 by 15 innkeepers, seeks to promote each other and tourism in the Grass Valley and Nevada City area. Peter Franchino bought the Elam Biggs House in 1995 and has been a member ever since.

The membership shrunk to six over the years as people purchased the inns and converted them into private homes.

Despite those changes, remaining association members are a tight-knit group, collaborating to keep each other accountable for providing full breakfasts to their guests and offering a clean establishment.

“We can get more done when there's more people working together,” Barbara Franchino said.

Peter Franchino lamented the various layers of chambers and downtown associations all attempting to attract tourists separately to the area, and said a collaborative approach is the most effective.

Plus, the Historic Inns benefit using their collective purchasing power.

“The major benefit to having the association is advertising,” Peter Franchino said. “If we want something in Sunset Magazine, we'll vote to assess ourselves that beyond our annual dues.”

Like other area inn owners, the downturn in the economy has hurt the association, Peter Franchino said.

“It's been felt drastically,” Peter Franchino said. “People don't come from as far away as they used to. Now, we're primarily getting folks from Chico, Reno, San Francisco and L.A.”

To contact Staff Writer Kyle Magin, e-mail kmagin@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4239.