B&B REVIEW : SAN DIEGO B&B HAS HERITAGE OF VICTORIAN TLC.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

When Nancy and Charles Helsper first visited the historic Queen Anne house on the cobblestone cul-de-sac overlooking Old Town in 1992, they had no plans to become innkeepers.

Their plans changed in a flash.

``We came to buy a four-poster bed - and we bought the whole place,'' said Nancy, who had worked for 10 years as head of catering for a major San Diego hotel. ``We didn't even know it was a bed-and-breakfast until we bought it.''

Christening their find the Heritage Park Bed & Breakfast Inn, they played host to their first guests a few days later, beginning a career both have grown to love.

Nancy manages the inn while Charles, a retired military man and engineer who had never before stepped into a kitchen except to raid the refrigerator, has become the chief cook.

``He has found this whole new life for himself,'' Nancy said with a laugh. ``He loves it and so do I.''

The couple now also owns the 1887 Victorian next door, which was built in 1887 by Edward Wilkenson Bushyhead, founder of the town's first newspaper, and has been converted into a banquet hall for weddings, receptions, teas and dinners. While it also houses a sumptuous turn-of-the-century suite upstairs, nine of the rooms are here, in the stately 1889 Queen Anne built in 1889 by Harfield Timberlake Christian, one of the signers of the city charter and city assessor and clerk, for his wife, Myrtle.

Walking through the front door of the lace-curtained foyer is like stepping back in time. Ornate, dark woodwork accents stairways, doors and windows throughout the house, and the parlor - with its twin, rose-colored, camel-back sofas, fireplace and ever-present jigsaw puzzle - beckons visitors to sit a spell.

Through an archway, lace-covered tables invite guests to linger over breakfast or afternoon tea. A buffet in the downstairs hallway is laden with carafes of hot coffee and decaf, and boiling water and a basket of teas are also handy. A Victorian house cookie jar is refilled with fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies every afternoon.

Each guest room has a theme - most are named after flowers - that dictates the color of bed linens, carpets and wall hangings. I stayed in the Victorian Rose Room, accented with rose-colored wallpaper, antique rose prints on the walls and even a rose-printed guest book tucked onto the shelf of a bedside table.

A basket of magazines and a tour guidebook, a soft featherbed, a half-dozen fluffy pillows and a friendly teddy bear make snuggling down at night bliss and getting up in the morning a chore.

And there are thoughtful little touches: clock radios tuned to a local classical music station, a flashlight on the bedside table, a full shampoo and soap dispenser on the wall inside the shower, and mints and an antique jug of ice water delivered to rooms at bedtime.

Breakfast usually includes an egg dish (we were served ramekins of eggs mixed with ham, green onions and herbs), bread or rolls, fruit, juice and tea or coffee (tea lovers find their own cozy-covered teapot at their place).

The previous owners served breakfast in bed. Consequently, few guests ever met. But Nancy wanted her guests to mingle. She converted a ground-floor guest room back into a dining room and watched brief friendships between strangers blossom.

``It all happens at breakfast,'' Nancy said. ``That's my favorite part. People talk about where they've been, where they're going - get to know each other a little bit. Generally, people just don't linger over breakfast anymore and they don't take the time to talk to each other. They do here.''

As we breakfasted, a Lake Tahoe couple said they had ended up at Heritage Park the night before after pulling up in front of a small hotel where they had reservations and deciding they wanted something nicer.

``We ended up here,'' the woman said. ``It was nice waking up here, like being in somebody's house you know.''

I was intrigued by the guest book in my room, in which several couples - jokingly, I thought - had commented on ``the secret of the armoire,'' a stately, mirrored wardrobe that stood in one corner.

Asked about the secret, Nancy hesitated at first, then, with a grin, revealed that some guests have reported seeing a specter in the room, a woman dressed in white who appears - and disappears - in the armoire's mirrored doors.

Guests in the nearby Forget-Me-Not Room have reported books flying off the mantlepiece in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, she said.

Although Nancy said she's not a believer in ghosts, she may have seen what many guests have reported.

``One night, I saw a white flash out of the corner of my eye going into the Victorian Rose Room,'' she said. Investigating, she found nothing.

Whoever or whatever the spirit is, it is apparently a benign one, and as happy to be in the cozy inn as the rest of us.

B&B Basics Address: Heritage Park Bed and Breakfast Inn, 2470 Heritage Park Row, San Diego, Calif. 90018.

Phone: [phone]

Price range: $90-$225 per night, double. Business rate $89 Sunday through Thursday.

Number of rooms: 10, all with private bath.

House rules: Smoking on the veranda, children welcome, no pets.

Money matters (credit cards, cancellation policy): Visa, MasterCard, American Express, personal checks, cash, seven-day cancellation notice required; full refund if room can be rented.

Check in/check out: 3 to 9 p.m. / 11 a.m.

Telephones, television: Phones, radios in rooms. TV, VCR in parlor, suite.

SOURCE: - Daily News research

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Color) Heritage Park Bed & Breakfast isin a parklike setting.

Carol Bidwell/Daily News

(2) A painted iron bed, antiques and rose prints decorate the Victorian Rose room at Heritage Park Bed & Breakfast Inn, a short walk from San Diego's Old Town area.

Carol Bidwell/Daily News

Box: B&B Basics (See text)