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Medford B&B on the cover of Sunset Photo by Bob Pennell Renate Elam owns Under the Greenwood Tree bed and breakfast in Medford, which landed a coveted spot on the cover of Sunset magazine. By BILL VARBLE That sun-dappled farmhouse on the cover of Sunset magazine is Medford's Under the Greenwood Tree. A blurb next to Renate Elam's cozy bed and breakfast inn heralds "The West's Best Inns, 24 Great B&Bs for Warmth, Comfort, and Romance." The selection floored Elam, who is keenly aware of Medford's lack of destination cachet next to trendy Ashland. "It's always Medford-Dreadford," she says. Most of Elam's guests come from California's hyper-busy Silicon Valley or the Seattle area seeking a rural retreat, she says. "I have created a group of people who say, `God no, we don't want to be next to the theater.' They're people who aren't pretentious. Hewlett-Packard guys who don't mind petting my rabbit." That would be Harvey, who's in Sunset's story along with the B&B's cutting garden, the iris and rhododendron gardens, the 140-bush rose collection, plus antiques, voluptuous beds and a Persian rug. In the cover photo, people lounge on the covered front porch on a June evening as the sun sinks low. Flowers line the porch and a walkway. Inside is a shot of guests having coffee on the lawn near a pond. "Look forward to afternoon tea and treats, and a three-course breakfast in the dining room," Sunset gushed as it plunked the Medford digs down on the page next to inns in Monterey, Calif., Sedona, Ariz., and Santa Fe, N.M. Sunset senior editor Jeff Phillips says the story was no quick roundup of the usual suspects. The selection process started more than a year ago and involved writers, editors and experts narrowing down a list of top B&Bs in the West to about 300. A second round of cuts narrowed the list to 50 finalists. Sunset then sent people incognito to stay in B&Bs from the Willows Historic Palm Springs Inn, in Palm Springs, Calif., to Wolfe Krest in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is operated by Kay Malone, wife of Utah Jazz basketball star Karl Malone. "Both exhaustive and exhausting" is how Phillips describes the search. Elam started the Greenwood Tree a dozen years ago in a 19th century farmhouse shaded by oaks and black walnuts on the far West side of Medford. There are 11 buildings ("constantly falling apart!" she moans). Three of the 10 acres are landscaped. Five flower-bedecked rooms are available, two with attached sitting rooms. Price is $125 a night ($115 in the winter). For a look, go to www.greenwoodtree.com Sunset described Elam as "worldly, opinionated, gracious." Elam trained at the famed L'Ecole Cordon Bleu in France and handles all the chef chores. "You can't very often make anything bad for breakfast," she says. She says the Sunset people came in June and returned in November to shoot more photos. "I bought a bunch of bougainvillea," she remembers. "I hate a garden that's empty." Before she knew of the cover story, she had thought it would be nice if she could buy an ad in the magazine, which can cost around $1,000. Phillips sited comfort as a key criterion in Sunset's choices. "I've stayed in too many B&Bs with great antiques where you can't read in bed," he says. Elam says the secret to that comfy feeling is lots of hard work, done slowly, yielding what she calls "an illusion" of ordered tranquility. She plans an open house in May. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA