Twenty years of running the Prospect Historic Hotel is enough for Fred and Karen Wickman, who are ready to sell and take it easy.

“We’re tired and we want to play,” Fred said Wednesday during a tour of the three-story, 10-room hotel and grounds.

The Wickmans are looking forward to being on the guest side of the lobby check-in counter in the future.

“We want to be welcomed,” Karen said. “We want to have our needs met. We want to be treated well.”

That’s just what they’ve done for “thousands and thousands and thousands” of their guests since their escape from the rat race of San Francisco in 2005, when Karen left behind work as a registered nurse and home health care manager and Fred left behind a career as a mechanical and electronics engineer.

Their three children were teens when they bought the place.

“The kids all wanted to live in the mountains,” Fred said.

Now the children are adults and on their way, and it’s time to slow down and let someone else serve the food, change the sheets and get up in the attic at 3 a.m. to fix the HVAC system.

“I know way more about septic systems than I ever wanted to know,” Fred said.

They’ll leave behind countless memories of serving so many good, fun people and a few grumpy ones. They catered to people from all over the world, many of them in the area to visit Crater Lake.

“Get to know your customers and enjoy them,” Karen said, when asked for any advice she might have for others.

What’s now for sale is an updated, expanded 1880s-era hotel with accompanying dinner house, an additional 14-unit motel built in the 1980s, plus a house and a shop on 5.6 creekside acres.

“Just reduced, $2.9 million,” down from $3.3 million, Fred said when asked the price.

“Karen and I are stewards of the hotel,” he said. “We’re hoping to find new owners that are a lot like us.”

For now, they’re on the business side of the counter, getting ready for another summer season when the dinner house opens May 3. Prime rib is a house specialty and available every night of the week. Salmon and lasagna might be on the menu, too. Rooms are available year-round.

“We do great food and great service, and they beat a path back to us,” Fred said.

Surviving the coronavirus pandemic was tough, and staffing still isn’t up where they want it, but they’ve got a good core staff and expect 30 or so employees to be aboard for this year’s run, which they hope will be a good one.

“You never know,” Karen said, when asked how the season might go. “You know when you know.”

Ideally, there will be good weather and no wildfires.

Walking up the front stairs of the hotel and inside, guests cross a wraparound porch and step into a small lobby. To the left is check-in; to the right, a cozy lobby with a fireplace. Straight ahead are dining rooms and an adjacent commercial kitchen. Up carpeted stairs are rooms appointed with period furniture, where presidents and notables stayed, including Teddy Roosevelt, who signed legislation declaring Crater Lake a national park in 1902.

Out back is an outbuilding cooled by piping carrying water that doesn’t warm above 47 degrees, even at the height of summer. Nearby is an old wood-fueled water heater that once supplied heated water for a barn-turned-makeshift-bathhouse with tubs, now just a memory. An old water fountain nearby now serves as a water feature.

Farther out back, past an old trail wagon and a line of greenery, is the 14-unit motel. And beyond the motel is a log house that serves as the Wickman home. There’s green lawns, a pond and horseshoe pits. Mill Creek runs through the back of the property.

The hotel opened in 1889 and was restored in 1989. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

“An hour’s drive (from Medford) to step back in time a hundred years,” Fred said.

The Wickmans, who met at a friend’s wedding, have been married 45 years.

“Forty-five years later and we’re still kicking,” Karen said. “We spend every day together.”

“And we still like each other,” Fred said.

They went to Maui in February, their first real vacation in 20 years.

They’re proud of what they’ve done.

“We set this up to be the place we’d want to go to,” Karen said.

She took over the dinner house while he helped take care of maintenance and marketing and “dabbles with breakfast recipes,” according to the hotel’s website, prospecthotel.com. It was Karen’s idea to hold a Victorian Christmas High Tea event, which became a spectacular annual success until the pandemic killed it.

Craig Sinclair, their longtime property maintenance man, stepped up onto the porch, where the Wickmans ended their tour.

“The ins gotta work and the outs gotta work,” Sinclair said, explaining the work to be done there, including upkeep on the septic system, one of the county’s largest.

Sinclair has called Prospect home since he was in school. Now he’s middle-aged.

“I like it here,” he said. “This is the goldenest place to be.”

As long as there’s no wildfires, he added.

Over the years, Fred has served on boards with Travel Southern Oregon and the Oregon Bed & Breakfast Guild. He says that a two-night stay brings in significantly more per-day spending to a community compared with a single night’s stay. And what’s good for the hotel can be good for surrounding businesses.

“When we’re full, everybody else in this town wins,” he said.

The hotel typically serves as something of a visitor center for travelers, with staff members expected to be knowledgeable about what to see and do.

“If they’re not promoting the area, they’re getting retrained,” Fred said.

Among the attractions are nearby trails and waterfalls, including Pearsony Falls, which is a 12-minute hike from the hotel’s entrance, and Avenue of the Boulders, a five-minute walk farther, where the Rogue River tumbles down a steep, narrow canyon. The view also can be seen looking down from Mill Creek Drive where it crosses the river.

“The Upper Rogue is a destination, not just a waypoint,” Fred said. “I call it the Upper Upper Rogue.”

Nearby are National Forest campgrounds, day-use areas and natural attractions, including Rogue River Gorge, Natural Bridge and Upper Rogue River Trail, all located between Prospect and the Union Creek area, home to the Union Creek Resort and Becky’s Cafe.

Prospect is 45 miles from Medford, via Highway 62, also known as Crater Lake Highway. From Prospect, it’s another 35 miles to the rim of Crater Lake. Prospect’s main business area is a quarter-mile off the highway. Watch for directional signs.

Mill Creek Drive, which extends through the business area and past the hotel, intersects with the highway above and below the community. Union Creek is about 11 miles beyond Prospect, toward Crater Lake.

The hotel is at 391 Mill Creek Drive, at the intersection of the Butte Falls Highway and Mill Creek Drive. Summer rates for hotel rooms are listed at $210-$235 except for a $325 suite on the top floor. As for that prime rib special, “I think it’s $34,” Fred said.

For more information, call 541-560-3664 or visit prospecthotel.com.