“Look in the mirror and that is your guest?”
Really, me? Foliage is now almost behind us; how well did you survive this season? Each step that I take, as I walk through our woods, the leaves rustle under my boots, they are brown and wet! Yes, for the last 3 weeks I have had to [...]

March 18, 2011
As you know, it’s that Morning snow-shoe trek through our woods that makes me reflect on things!  I do that walk every Morning with my favorite dog, Chocolat! Guess what? Today we had snow to accompany us! That is Vermont for you!
Last week we attended the Mid-Atlantic Inn-keeper Conference in Lancaster, PA. [...]

January20, 2011
PAII really put on a terrific conference in Charleston, S.C. Did you miss it? I hope not! It was so much fun and so much new “stuff to grab hold”. So much is happening today, in our small segment of the hospitality business! If you have not joined PAII yet do it today, Your [...]

June 11, 2010
Why stay at Inns? I can’t believe when I stay at an Inn that I have never been to before, that there is yet one more way, that the Inn-keepers can be different, and running their Inn uniquely from any other place that I have been. Yes, it is partly the setting, it [...]

It’s January and we are embracing a New Year; a new decade! I am stewing about the importance of having values; what were your thoughts to lead you forward to consider Inn-keeping or actually becoming an Inn-keeper? What was it that made you decide to leave the corporate milieu? There is lots of turmoil in [...]

The snow finally fell and stuck.  Four inches, enough that I could snowshoe through our woods…the quiet, the trees laden with snow, boughs bent to block my path: Winter has arrived.
For many of my friends who are Inn-keepers, this is a very busy time of year. I know that the decorating is done, holly on [...]

Here we are, after a 7 hour trek from Vermont, on a mountain top at 2100 feet. A pristine lake, deep and clear, in the middle of the town, with huge Victorian mansions built around the lake; some as early as 1850. The banks of mountain laurel and rhododendron garner the immediate path around the [...]

What a wonderful weekend and a gracious restful night at the Inn at Sunrise Point!  Not all of you need an excuse to travel; for us we had two reasons for our trip: to pick up our old, repainted and  restored  Brattleboro-made wooden chairs, vintage 1910 from the Windsor Chair Company in Lincolnville and  celebrating [...]

I have always thought, if you had a chance to change what you do to make a living, and Innkeeping comes to mind: well do it, but be passionate about it, or forget it!  Now why would I say that?  Because it takes a lot to make others (your guests, namely) feel the enthusiasm that [...]

Here’s a thought provoking idea gleaned from the Seth Godin www.sethgodin.typepad.com and passed along to me by Gary Muller, who with his wife Sylvia owns and runs the superb Mill House Inn in East Hampton, Long Island.
Seth writes that “in tough times marketers fret about price.  We think people care only about price”.  Actually, in [...]