ED WAGNER and his wife, Dolly, know exactly what they're looking for in a bed-and-breakfast: that quaint, old-fashioned lodging experience, with quilts and fresh-baked muffins. So the Knoxville, Tenn., couple was surprised when they checked into a B&B in Newport, Tenn., and found themselves in a suite with a leopard-print chaise lounge and a hot tub.

It was a little "overpowering," says Mr. Wagner, 50 years old, recalling the inn's owner, a 31-year-old man with an earring. "Where was all the little fluffy stuff sitting around with a bunch of antiques?"

This fall, leaf-peeping Americans who stop in at B&Bs may find that a lot more than just the leaves are changing. A new, younger generation of innkeepers is muscling its way into the sleepy $3.5 billion B&B business with its own ideas about lodging. At a host of new and newly owned inns, they're replacing traditional decor with post-modern rooms, swapping afternoon tea for Internet access, and taking a pass on socializing with their guests. In short, they are tinkering with a formula that has served B&Bs for ages. "You might as well strike the 'breakfast' out of 'Bed and Breakfast,' " says Richard Gordon, an inn inspector based in Providence, R.I.

Young innkeepers are taking over B&Bs in record numbers, with a quarter of inns now run by under-40 owners, according to a survey by BedandBreakfast.com. That's up from 9% in 1997. Brash and creative, these new owners say the industry needs to become more kidfriendly and play down the schmoozing with hosts and fellow guests. "People my age don't want to stay at some place that looks like their auntie's," says innkeeper Drew Ogle. His B&B, Christopher Place Inn, features "theme" rooms ("Camelot" and "The Secret Garden") and lets guests show up in bathrobes at breakfast.

That's nothing compared to the Villa at Saugerties, N.Y., where the rooms feature stark, minimalist decor, and 28-year-old innkeeper Aimee Szparaga has been known to greet guests in a bikini. "I see a blurring between the B&B and the boutique hotel," she says.

Newfangled or not, the bed-and-breakfast has become a tempting business for young entrepreneurs these days. There are nearly 30,000 B&Bs in America-more than all the Hiltons, Hyatts and Holiday Inns combined-and the industry has been steadily growing for decades. In all, it's projected to grow by about 4% this year, compared with the hotel industry's anemic 1.6%.

Indeed, since Sept. 11, hotels and motels have been much harder hit than these smaller rivals, which don't depend as much on business travelers. Innkeeping is "almost recession-proof," says hospitality analyst Robert Mandelbaum of Atlanta's PKF Consulting. In hard times, these owners can always cut back on staff and do more work themselves, or simply "put a couple less bacon slices on the plate," says Jerry Phillips, executive director of the Professional Association of Innkeepers International. That flexibility and security appeal to thirtysomething refugees from recent corporate upheavals who want more control over their lives.

Off-Site Hosts
But these folks bring with them a decidedly different way of doing things. Before she opened the Sheppard Mansion B&B in Hanover, Pa., 27-year-old Kathy Sheppard's entertaining dilemmas didn't go much beyond "Gee, where's the keg?" Now, even though she cribs housekeeping tips from Martha Stewart books, she's made a major break with B&B tradition: She doesn't actually live in her inn. "I don't want to be here seven years from now screaming and hanging off the roof," she says.

That kind of approach flies in the face of the traditional B&B experience, in which visitors were treated more like house guests, and often would even dine with their hosts. Television sets were typically absent from guest rooms, too, part of an effort to keep the modern world from intruding on a quiet country weekend. But according to the Professional Association of Innkeepers, many inns are beginning to look more like, well, hotels, with 35%, offering in-room Internet access in 2000 compared with 19% in 1998. More than half of all B&Bs have in-room TVs, too. And once-mandatory trappings like cookies, afternoon tea and bouquets are disappearing; only about a third of all B&Bs now feature fresh flowers, according to the association.

Some guests like the changes. When graduate student Ed Dawidowicz, 32, checked into an upstate New York inn, he and his fiancee had the whole place to themselves-the young innkeepers had taken off for an Ethan Hawke book signing. "We just sat in the lounge polishing off a bottle of wine," he said. Big contrast to an earlier B&B stay where they had to muster polite dinner conversation and the elderly innkeepers "asked us if we were married."

More Gen-X innkeepers with young families mean more inns friendly to children, too. On a recent trip to Martha's Vineyard, Bob and Janet Chafey were delighted to find a bed-and-breakfast that welcomed their two-year-old daughter, Kate. At the Oak Bluffs Inn, the Chafeys found a yard with a slide, stacks of Dr. Seuss books and no breakable knickknacks lying around. "We don't run the sort of place our kids couldn't come to," says innkeeper Erik Albert, who has two young children.

Loss of Traditional Charm
But purists fret that. those very improvements may speed up the loss of the traditional bed-and-breakfast's sleepy charm. While. no one can cite the youth movement, complaints about B&Bs are inching up at some Better Business Bureau offices. Sue Moore, executive director of the Michigan based Select Registry agency, says five inns haven't passed inspection so far this year-an unusually high number. Ms. Moore says the actual age of the owners may have little to do with good service, but adds that the Gen Xers, probably the first generation to be raised on TV dinners, may know less about the fine art of hosting than their old rivals.

Indeed, some new-style B&Bs aren't finding favor with the very crowd of people that helped the industry grow: the die-hard fan, says Eric Goldreyer, chief executive of BedandBreakfast. com. The average inn guest is 52 years old and checks in looking forward to the "eccentric, oldworld charm," of B&,Bs, says Mr. Goldreyer. "If they weren't, they'd be at Hyatt."

Comforting Thought
While staying at an inn run by thirtysomethings in San Francisco, Rona Crawley found the Apple Mae computer in the lounge attracted guests hungry for Internet access, ruining her plans for a quiet read. "I thought I was at an inn," says Mrs. Crawley, a homemaker, "not the Comfort Inn." Going to a bed-and-breakfast, says Dave Freeze, a computer consultant from Raleigh, N.C., should feel like going "to a family reunion" -- not like his recent experience at a Strasburg, Pa., inn run by twentysomethings "who weren't around much."

Still, B&B fans better get used to the new wave. Doug Carleton, a lender for the Small Business Administration, says about 20%, of the agency's B&B-related loans are being granted to people in their 30s, compared with 10%, to 15% three years ago. The Bed and Breakfast Institute of Learning in says about a quarter of the innkeepers taking their courses are in their 30s.

Will this new generation of owners win over the devotees of old fashioned B&Bs? Well, remember the who were taken aback by the safari room at the Cristopher Place Inn in Newport, Tenn? After a stay during which they tried a new menu that included starfruit and chatted with Mr. Ogle about entrepreneurship, they decided that his inn"was better "than a room at Aunt Granny's," Mr. Wagner says. They returned for their 25th anniversary-but this time, they splurged for the plum-and-beige "Roman Holiday" honeymoon suite.