How Jenny and I Got Started in the B&B Biz

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It's way past time to get this Bed and Breakfast log (BBBlog!) rolling, so that everything is set up when Jenny and I finally return to a business that we both enjoy, and are damn good at. We often find ourselves looking back on our experiences so far and agreeing that B&B owners are, according to everything we have seen to date, a very odd lot.

It all began in early 2003 with Sue Knight at the Wild Rose Inn in Genoa, Nevada, a pretty little town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas which claims to be the first settlement in the state (dating all the way back to 1851, or the day before yesterday in terms of the big picture of civilization!).

Jen had been saying for years that she would love to run a B&B--"just a small place, no more than 5-6 rooms"--and because we had become friendly with the couple who first built the WRI, we kept our eye on it when they left and were intrigued when it was taken over by a woman who was then known as Sue Haugnes ("pronounced Haynes, dear, my husband's people couldn't spell!"). That would have been in the mid-90s, I guess. Sue is an ex-pat Brit like us (I have been in the U.S. since the first day of 1976, Jen and our big kids since the summer of 1978) so it was not hard to strike up an acquaintanceship.

Finally, in the spring of '03, Sue called to ask if Jen would be interested in taking over the place while she went off on a trip to England--her Mum was and still is in an old folks' home in Bournemouth. Two weeks became a month, and we moved in to be innsitters at a slave labor rate, $25 a day if the house was empty, $75 a day if one or more room was rented (we later learned that the starting rate for innsitters was $150 a day, with or without guests, but back then, ignorance was bliss!).

The upshot of our month as innkeepers was that we learned what we had always suspected: Jen loved every minute of it, even without help to change sheets and clean rooms, and I had a blast dealing with reservations and incoming guests, and learning all I could about the business by exploring other Inn websites and marketing services..

Come September, after I had put myself on some B&B job mailing lists and newsletters, I received a posting about a job at the Lord Mayor's Inn in Long Beach, less than an hour south of our old stamping ground, Pasadena in Los Angeles County. I assumed the job would have been filled by the time I got the notice, but e-mailed anyway with brief information about us. Back came a request that we arrange a face-to-face interview, and since Jenny was tied up with her job at the Sturgis Ranch, I drove south to fly the family flag.

The LMI was in a slightly seedy part of Long Beach, slightly seedy being my recollection of all of Long Beach dating back 15-20 years when the boys and I used to go fishing on party boats (the term describes groups of fishermen, not drunken revelers!) out of Long Beach Harbor. I was amazed at LB's transformation since my last visit, becoming a lively, vibrant tourist center and back from the brink of ghost town hell.

The B&B was stately and frayed at the edges, but had great potential, I thought, so I was surprised when the old man who interviewed me, Reuben Brasser (co-owner with his wife Laura) said that year-round occupancy was barely 10%! We were offered the job and accepted the crappy pay (about a third of the fair market rate) because we felt that we were in essence going to B&B school and could not hope to make a decent living until our training wheels were off.

The experience was valuable, it turned out, but frustrating because of the extraordinary hostility that the Brassers harbored towards pretty much everybody, with staff and paying guests vying for the top slot on their list of phobias. What we were presented with in short order was a series of lessons on how not to run a bed and breakfast.

Some sample rules: "Never initiate a conversation with a guest. Do not make eye contact. Do not provide more than one egg per guest at breakfast. If guests ask for information about local attractions and events, remember at all times that we are not entertainment directors. If they need to find local restaurants, give them the binder of menus (note: many were years out of date) or hand them the yellow pages. Do not allow guests to take food or drink into their rooms. Guests who arrive before 6pm must be told that hot water will not be available before that time in the interests of conservation and environmental concerns. If they wish to take a shower upon arrival, they will have to wait."
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