Almost all of Dunfermline is on the doorstep of Squirrel Lane Cottage. Fifty yards to the right of its front door, there's a museum devoted to Andrew Carnegie, the impoverished son of the town who went to America and by 1900 had built the Carnegie Steel Company, the largest and most profitable company the world had ever seen.

In fact, Squirrel Lane Cottage once belonged to Carnegie - he bought it as accommodation for some of his staff. Today it is the snug and cosy home of Brenda and Bob Kucharzewski, who, with retirement to Utah, America, in their sights, have now put it on the market at offers over £189,000.

On entering, the cottage feels immediately comfortable, a happy place. This may have something to do with the fact that Squirrel Lane Cottage is believed to be Dunfermline's longest continually occupied property. It has been lived in since around 1789 and Brenda - a genealogist - has a record of all her predecessors, among them a gardener, a dressmaker and a sea captain.

It's information that comes in handy when there are guests to entertain, which is often, since the cottage doubles as a three-star B&B. And the couple's other source of income - operating under the name Ancestral Journeys of Scotland - involves taking small groups of American tourists in search of their Scottish forebears.

Brenda and Bob are not short of stories themselves. Bob's include an eight-year spell working as a police officer in the Australian bush. Brenda's involve her 29 years of married life in Utah - where her children and grandchildren still live - and also about being a Dunfermline enthusiast. After leaving the town at the age of 17 to follow the Mormon faith, she says she could never get it out of her system, despite almost three decades of trying.

She says: “I was always homesick. I think it's the people. It's their nature I like. They talk to you in the street and they take care of their pets - I am a very doggy person. And everything, like the Highlands and good food, is so close by.”

Brenda decided to return to Dunfermline to care for her mother, and in so doing divorced her husband. Her zeal for history took her to Register House in Edinburgh. That was in 1993. At the time she had wondered what happened to her teenage sweetheart, Bob Kucharzewski, who had left for Australia in search of adventure.

Near the top of Brenda's street are two of Dunfermline's most impressive assets - the library, the first of 2,811 bankrolled by Carnegie worldwide - and a little further on, Cafe Giacomo.

Brenda says: “I had found out that Bob's aunt lived in [nearby] Cardenden, under the surname Foulis. So, I'm having a coffee in Giacomo's and this little old lady asks if I'd mind her sitting in the empty chair at my table.

“We got talking, and when I found out she was from Cardenden, I asked if she knew Ina Foulis, and she did. That evening, this woman, whom I've never spoken to since, phoned me with Ina's number. One phone call led to another, and then, eventually, to Bob.”

The couple were married three years later. Photographs all over Squirrel Lane Cottage testify to a love of each other and of life. Working fireplaces add to the sense of homeliness, as does the flower-patterned wallpaper

in the two bedrooms and the “twist-and-turn” wrought-iron staircase and roll-top bath. However, while it is furnished as you might expect a Georgian property to be, the building is not listed.

Brenda adds: “Squirrel Lane Cottage was pretty dilapidated when Bob and I bought it in 1994 from the Carnegie Trust. There was no heating, just an old gas fire. We ripped a lot of it out - carpets, wallpaper, kitchen cabinets. It was quite a bit of work.”

The road immediately outside the front door is to be narrowed, says Brenda, to make access to the museum more visitor-friendly. There are, she insists, lots of people working hard to improve the town's fortunes.

“The feel of the house tells you, I think, how to decorate it,” she says.

“I know it is our own personal taste, but there wasn't always a lot of choice, because of the way the rooms are. Maybe the [ornate marble] fireplace in the dining room is a little ostentatious, and not to everyone's taste, but I think it works.”

Maloco + associates, 01383 629 720

Explore Property

• Buying & Selling

• New Homes

• Overseas

• Interiors

• Investment

• Gardens

• Specials

Times recommends

• Fall in house sales hits builders, estate agents and mortgage brokers
• Why the property credit crunch favours cash buyers
• The blood-curdling history of Quarrelwood House