FRENCH LACE AND FRESH FOODS AT MISS AIMEE B'S TEA ROOM.(Lifestyle)

UPON ENTERING Miss Aimee B's Tea Room, a customer remarked to owners Judy Howell and Sherry Pfaender: "I smell my grandmother's house, and the aroma is magical."

"We get comments like that all the time," Howell says. "People feel at home here."

With its Victorian furnishings and windows adorned with French lace curtains, the lovely brick residence on First Capitol Drive in St. Charles is a perfect setting for a tearoom. The circa-1865 home was bequeathed in 1991 to the city of St. Charles by its owner, Aimee Becker, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The genteel Becker, who died at age 94, had earned a finishing degree in tea and tennis as a young lady, Pfaender notes. Becker's recipe for pink lemonade is included in the "Miss Aimee B's Tea Room & Upstairs Market Place Cookbook of Divine Cuisine," sold at the restaurant. The tearoom's second …