Helen Opie will be known to many, not just in the Lismore community but people in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sydney, in fact, all over Australia.

Helen was the owner of one of Lismore's most iconic properties, Melville House. Helen passed away on June 5 following a short battle with bowel and liver cancer.

Melville House has been a bed and breakfast since the mid-1990s when Helen moved back to Lismore with her two sons, Charles and Marcus.

According to her son Charles, she has been the soul of Melville House for 30-years.

"Mum had a light touch with guests," Charles said, "She would always accommodate people wherever she could."

"There was many a time when I had to give up my room because she had overbooked. This would happen to her too, she would move out of her bedroom and sleep on a pull-out in the office."

Melville House was originally built in 1942 by Helen's grandparents Norman and Myrtle Melville.

(Melville House under construction in 1942. Photo supplied)

While it was Helen's family home during her early years, she was sent off to boarding school at Pymble Ladies College (PLC) in Sydney when about 11 years of age. The belief from her father and grandparents was that women should be educated. Although the move was tough, Helen loved PLCS, even becoming Head Prefect in her final year.

When Helen finished school she studied social work at UNSW in Sydney.

Helen always had an entrepreneurial spirit, buying a property and block of land in Sydney then when she moved in with her new husband Rex, in a terraced house in Darlinghurst they rented out a room and the business of operating a B&B began.

"Mum thought that bringing up two kids in inner Sydney wasn't the best environment with syringes regularly found outside your front door, so we moved back to Lismore," Charles said.

(Helen (right) on the back steps of Melville House as a young girl. Photo: supplied)

"She inherited Melville House in the mid '80's and rented it out for a while to an Anglican Priest."

"Mum then added the upstairs extension, adding three more bedrooms, making it eight in total then started renting out the rooms."

Helen worked as a social worker at the Lismore Base Hospital while running the Melville House B&B into her sixties.

Charles remembers a lot of guests over the years, some he spent more time with than his relatives because they were so regular over a period of time.

"There was Kunio's room. Kunio was a Japanese lecturer at the Uni, he was with us for a year. Then there was a Gold Coast surgeon Craig Late who visited regularly for 5 years and lately, Ina, who has been with us for 12 months."

(The Melville House backyard will be used for Helen's wake tomorrow.)

While Charles does not have the passion to be heavily involved in the day-to-day running of Melville House like his mother, it will continue to operate as a B&B.

"I am definitely not going to sell this place," Charles concluded.

Helen Opie's funeral will be held tomorrow at the Anglican Church on Zadoc Street at 11am tomorrow with a wake to be held at the historic Melville House.