BETHEL — The Sudbury Inn, a well-known restaurant, inn and pub at 151 Main St. went on the auction block Tuesday afternoon.

Additionally, foreclosure proceedings by Machias Savings Bank are under way, but the inn remains open for business.

“It continues to operate, I mean it’s in full operation,” auctioneer Tom Saturley of Tranzon Auction Properties LLC said Tuesday afternoon in Portland.

“It’s still there, still the same chef, still great food, still great pub downstairs.”

Scott Davis bought the property in 2008 from Bill and Nancy White and kept Peter Bodwell on as executive chef.

Davis declined to comment early Wednesday afternoon on the proceedings. However, in a letter he wrote to The Bethel Citizen, Davis said he’s not giving up.

“I am working day and night to secure refinancing to keep the best staff that I have ever worked with employed at the inn and to continue my personal relationship with the Bethel community,” he said.

Davis wrote that he bought The Sudbury Inn “just before the ‘great recession,’ and has done everything possible to keep the inn a viable operating entity.

“Being foreclosed upon by Machias Savings Bank has been a distressing time for me, and an auction of the inn is even more so,” he said.

The bank hired Tranzon to conduct a nationwide campaign for the auction. That is scheduled for Thursday, April 5.

According to Tranzon’s listing, the property includes three buildings: The inn, which is 9,107 square feet with 13 guest rooms and a 120-seat restaurant; the 1,912-square-foot Sud’s Pub; and a 2,704-square-foot Carriage House with five guest rooms.

Saturley said he didn’t know the circumstances behind the foreclosure proceedings.

“There’s a lot of tough times here in this great country, including the state of Maine,” he said.

“They’re challenging times and without knowing anyone’s circumstances — and I don’t — but this is not an uncommon circumstance that folks are having challenges.

“What the foreclosure process does is, it corrects that challenge, and that’s what the foreclosure process is going on with regards to Sudbury Inn — correcting the challenge,” he said.

“Our job is to spread the word across the country and wherever we can. There are a lot of hospitality companies across the country and so we will be contacting all kinds of folks from different walks of life that should be interested in a hospitality property in Bethel, Maine.”

Bethel Town Clerk Christen Mason said Tuesday that Davis owed the town three years of back taxes on the property’s three structures. Machias Savings Bank paid those taxes on Feb. 1, including current-year taxes on the inn at 151 Main St.

For the inn itself, which is assessed by the town at $647,900, the total taxes owed to current year were $9,363.94. Taxes owed on the other two buildings, which are assessed at $259,400 and $172,000, were $23,942.04 and $2,177.03, respectively, Mason said.

Saturley said the bank is a qualified bidder on the property.

“But the reason they asked us to enter into this engagement and to do a national campaign is, because it is their hope and intention that we will find a new owner/operator for The Sudbury Inn, and that it not be a financial institution,” he said.

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