Innkeeper's Columns - January 2001

Do you provide your guest accommodations in an inn? a bed and breakfast? a short term lodging? It's determined by many factors: marketing plans, personal fit, the range of services implied….maybe even local bylaws.

Our friends Peter and Serge left successful careers in advertising, realizing that fourteen vacation days crammed with everything they wanted to do but couldn't fit into the year was not a path to nirvana. Usually those 14 days involved a stay at a bed and breakfast somewhere. Twice with us.

It was Peter who said, "We like people; Serge, you like to cook…we LOVE art and it's all tax deductible!" It is Peter's naiveté that endears him to all of us. They like to eat, too, but should they open a restaurant? When Serge agreed, Rob and I looked at each - for once at a loss for words. Something powerful was clearly happening before our eyes. All rational thought was suspended, there was a certain gleam in Serge's eyes. Rob cleared his throat and poured more coffee. I could swear I caught a slight moan emanating from Peter.

Gestation began with that heady exhilaration I see in my straight friends, newly discovered to be procreating. That's how it was - not a business so much as a baby, a project with about nine months of interior decoration, shopping!

The house is large, some five thousand square feet of late Victorian potential. (Potential is a condition that a sizable wallet can cure.) Zoned duplex, it already had the advantage of three self-contained suites and a shared laundry room. One of these was to be the public space, large sitting area with a dining alcove off the original kitchen, fitted with replicas of period stove and fridge. Peter and Serge have lived alone in the house for years, not renting the suites but sharing the space with friends and relatives with a bohemian sort of elan.

One evening, Serge explained, "it's a small change, really, to expand the invitation to the world and entertain on a cost recovery basis." Serge has a way with words. I raised my eyebrows as I sipped my martini. My second reference to the need for a business plan was dismissed with a knowing wink from Peter, "we're financing it ourselves." This time the moan escaped from me.

The trouble came when the local municipality began its crackdown on "transient housing". The bylaw was ancient, intended to catch irresponsible landlords. The bylaw officer looked past the mahogany paneling, He had trouble distinguishing between bohemian and transient and said that Peter and Serge looked less like a single family and more like a business unit. While up to three rooms could be let in a single family dwelling without city permission or intervention, a business operation such as this required zoning changes, renovation to more exacting code, special licenses. Penalties of $2000 per week would be levied while Peter and Serge made application to a council not disposed to hear from property owners found to be in a state of non-compliance.

Peter and Serge have pulled their advertising, cancelled web-site development and are back at square one. It will be at least six months before they can open.

The moral of the story is to remember that while our work as innkeepers can be fun and it can indulge our interests in people and beautiful things, it is absolutely a business. Learn the business requirements, stay on the right side of local government and keep up with the changing scene. Watching our friends' troubles has raised our conscious of changes closer to home. In our own city, changing bylaws reflect the city hall's need to increase its tax base and revenues. When bylaws are being re-written, there are sometimes unexpected results. There is an art in interpreting civic bylaws and sometimes it takes a concerned citizen to help an official remember the goal underlying a rule written forty years ago. We'll be positioning ourselves to stay on the right side of the city while maintaining our focus on gay and lesbian visitors. That may mean flexibility in the range of services we offer and building relationship with city staff and council members. Are you ready for what your city council is planning for your future?

John and Rob, ably assisted by daughter Devon, welcome guests to their 1914 Edwardian home in Victoria, British Columbia. Garden Oaks Fine Accommodation offers self-catered lodgings with the makings of breakfast provided in guest kitchens. English antiques blend with contemporary furnishings, original art and the privacy that only self-contained suites can offer. Well known travelers are assured of a confidential stay. The Parlour Suites' stained glass and south views over the city can be combined with the character built-in features of the Garden Suite to house up to seven guests. The Annex is available for longer term lease or the "snowbird" season.

Victoria is a popular destination situated on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Its year 'round temperate climate is ideal for off-season travelers. This provincial capital has more restaurants per capita than any other city in Canada and is a uniquely glbt friendly spot. Take the ferry for a 100 minute crossing through the gulf islands, a 17 minute harbour flight from bustling Vancouver or a spectacular flight or hydrofoil trip from Seattle.

Roger and Jim are relatively new to inn keeping, with just three years’ experience on the other side of the bed. Their goal is to offer their guests the finest bed and breakfast experience possible. In this series of articles they share their stumbles and delights along this voyage.
As we were moving into our new home and business property last month, we were short one bed: ours. This was not a problem if the guest rooms were empty, but, much to our surprise for a November in Toronto, we were booked every night, with one or both rooms, for the first three weeks that we opened at our new location. That left us scrambling for a place to sleep.

Our physical situation is like this: We have two full baths and four bedrooms in our home. One of the bedrooms is ours, two are devoted to guests, and a fourth is for our special weekend residents: our three young children. This "children’s room" can also be let to guests to create a "family suite" if required, as it connects to the largest guest room. As we only rent with private bath, we added a shower room in the basement for us, and fitting the logistics of this together, with two sets of guests, our kids, and ourselves, was reminiscent of the fox-and- the-geese-crossing-the-river-in-a-single-boat riddle.

As the delivery of the final bed was delayed again and again, we would take whatever space was available in the inn (it is a Christmas story, after all). This meant we would spend three or four nights in each guest room, and that is (finally!) the point of this story: every innkeeper, small or large, should spend at least three nights in every guest room.

Our deluxe queen is called The Bombay Room as the décor was inspired by The Bombay Company, complete with four-poster canopy bed and really exotic lamps you would never buy for your own quarters. We tucked into the "cloud of snow-white linens" for four nights, imagining we were guests in our finest room.

Quickly we noticed a few deficiencies. The room had a walk-in closet with shelves, but as the night tables were filled with lamps and the TV table was filled with a TV, there was no place in the room to put "things." That is, there was no dresser top, no desk top, to unload your pockets onto. And while the clean expanse of polished tile in the bathroom looked really sharp, we soon discovered we wanted to wriggle our bare toes into something a little more accommodating than a bath mat as we brushed our teeth. A side table (from The Bombay Company, of course), and a bath rug, became new essential additions to The Bombay Room, just in time for our first reservation for that room.

Now we moved to The Mission Room, our superior queen with new furnishings inspired (albeit loosely) by Frank Lloyd Wright. A smaller room, offering a walkout deck and private bath, it is still a very comfortable retreat. A bump or two in the night told us quickly there was no space for the television where we put it; we had to rewire the cable connections to move it – a six-foot move that took 50 feet of cable run along the baseboards to accomplish. It also revealed that standard fitted sheets would not stay on the new padded mattress overnight, requiring a change of linens. A slip in the bathtub shower also sent us scrambling to the hardware store to secure non-slip strips in a hurry. These corrections were made by the time our first guest for this room arrived, and now both queen beds were profitably filled.

No place left for us but the Family Suite extension, or the kids’ room. Here we had a double bed, a good quality four-poster set with dresser and night tables and a loveseat—the same furniture we had used in our single guestroom in our previous property up to the month previous. Less than one night into this adventure and we looked at each other in the dark, declaring simultaneously, "This has GOT to go!" We fought out the night in that tiny double bed, wondering how we could ever have subjected guests to that experience for three years. Each morning we would ask, "How did you sleep?" and each morning they would politely lie, "Wonderfully, thank you." Proving again that B&B guests are more like houseguests than hotel guests; they would never have put up with that in a hotel.

We replaced the complete double bed suite with two twins and other Mexican furnishings. The resulting Cancun Room increased the per-person bed space from 27 inches to 38 inches, and improved the versatility of the room as well, as now the overflow into the family suite may be older children, or another adult and child, or even two adults who prefer to snore in separate beds.

Roger Kershaw and Jim Lingerfelt operate Toronto Downtown Bed and Breakfast, Toronto’s premier bed and breakfast. In their spare time, Roger is a travel designer with a high-end concierge/travel company, www.attaché.ca, and Jim is an office manager for an engineering firm, www.carsondunlop.com. They also operate an extensive theatre web site, www.stage-door.org, and are occasional theatre critics.

Two weeks before Christmas, we had snow. In temperate Lotus Land, snow is a major occurance. The morning of the first snow, I had to drive to Courtenay for a meeting. Courteney is a mid-size city, home to hippies (ex or not), loggers, and fishers. The Comox Valley , home of Courtenay, is one and a half hours north of Ladysmith on Vancouver Island. When I left home, it was cloudy and dry, but the closer I got to Courtenay, the more snow came down. It didn’t let up all day.. The other people at the meeting from Nanaimo (just north of Ladysmith) decided to take the old highway home, along the coast, as the new highway is on a higher elevation and the thinking was that the snow would be worse higher up. I followed their lead and headed off, following the white tracks made by other cars and trucks trying to get home after a day’s work. Four hours later, I was within a long walk from home, going up the last hill in my rural area of Yellowpoint (located between Ladysmith and Nanaimo) before home when I felt the wheels on the front of my Toyota stationwagon start to slide off the road. I came to a stop and knew that was where the car was staying. My partner was able to get her truck through the snow to get me. My car stayed on Quennel Lake Road with a few others for four days.

The snow continued and by the time we got up, there was over a foot of snow covering the fields, pond, roads, cedar and fir trees. The horses were prancing and rolling in the white stuff. I sat by the living room window and enjoyed the pristine whiteness of it all, knowing it wouldn’t last long. Because we have so little snow, we also don’t have the equipment to deal with it. Snow plows were out immediately, but living on a secondary road, I knew it would be two days before we got plowed, so just sat back and enjoyed the enforced isolation.

Snow in coastal BC is heavy snow. There is usually about a ten minute window where a snow blower could be of use. After that, the rain or wet snow starts, and a plow is a much better tool. We did have rain right after the snow fall and then it froze again, so our white stuff was crunchy and leaden. We didn’t have any guests scheduled so decided to leave the driveway unshoveled. Instead, Jay concentrated on clearing a place to park the truck on the road. My car, of course, being parked in a snowdrift ten minutes away.

Cold nights meant frozen ground that meant no tromping through mud to feed the horses and chickens. It also meant that the water tap in the barn was frozen, so the next day found me hauling water from the garage in the wheelbarrow in a large white tub. I thought about the TV program I’d heard about that CBC (Canadian TV) is producing. Several couples are homesteading in rural Manitoba as if it were the turn of the last century. They are doing this for the hopes of money and our vicarious pleasure. Country living sounds romantic and can be, but hauling water for the horses brought me to the realization that I like my twenty-first century conveniences and don’t like it when I do without.

Four days later, my neighbours Dan and Richard, who had finally dug their tractor out of the barn and plowed their drive, went and got my car out of the snow with the help of several passerbys and neighbours.. I was in Vancouver working while this was going on and when I got home found Dan had driven my car into the snow-filled driveway. Which is where it sat while I dreamed of a green Christmas.

A green Christmas we got. The temperatures warmed. The rain started. The snow slowly disappeared, and the horses are now covered in mud as are my boots. My car is back on the road with new winter tires. It’s a funny thing about winter in coastal BC. Winter officially started as the snow was almost melted and yet I’m already looking for the first signs of spring. Spring is the longest season in this area. We live on small signs of hope for many months. These signs, like the few green spikey leaves coming from the water iris section of the pond and the wild strawberries that have sent runners into the pond, keep me grounded and full of expectation while I wait for the sun to come back in full summer force.

Most travellers looking for a holiday go elsewhere this time of the year. Yet the snow and rain bring a quiet beauty to Stonewall Guest House and Yellowpoint. Trumpeter swans winter on Quennel Lake and feed in the McNabs and La Ferme’s (an organic farm) fields. The McNabs plant potatoes in their lowest fields in the summer and in the winter the swans come in flocks of twenty or more to float on the standing water and eat the potato culls left behind. I don’t know what they are eating at La Ferme, but whatever it is, I know it's good for them.

The Crow and Gate, an English pub down the road, has their large, open fireplace roaring. Locals flock like the swans to feed on hearty home-made chicken pot pie, pub plates, prime rib (Sunday only) and draft. Or wander Ladysmith at night, looking at the lights that brighten all the stores at this season. The last Thursday of November, Ladysmith lights up after a spaghetti dinner at the Eagles Hall. Light up is followed by an hour long parade full of decorated floats, Santa, cars, transporter trucks (lots of them), and the occasional horse and buggy. The following week-end, the numerous artisans in Yellowpoint hold open house. People drive from all over the Island (which is 150 miles long) and from Vancouver to look at the crafts and art work and purchase holiday presents.

At Stonewall Guest House, the horses eat the last of the raspberries from the vines, and forage through the fir branches brought down by the winds. The chicken venture out for a few more minutes each day and start laying eggs more then once a week. We keep the fire in the living room going and the water hot for tea or coffee for friends and neighbours and pour over garden catalogues, deciding what flower and vegetable seeds need to be ordered this year. We listen to the quiet, knowing that in another two months, the tree frogs will erupt in a spring symphony of mating calls, the snow drops will have pushed their blooms to the surface, and the purple orchids which grow wild in the forest will be blooming. It will be time to start touch up painting on the decks, clean up the gardens and enjoy another spring and summer of activity and guests.