How to start a Bed and Breakfast
Posted: Thursday, December 02, 2004
by Joymoon
Ithaka House
Greetings!
I bought a wonderful 106 year old Victorian home in the Catskills of NY thinking it would be wonderful for my family. It also had a four apartment house next to the main house(it was converted to apartments from a barn before I bought it). It also had a commercial garage with a real VW on it as the former owner used it to build double headed VW's.
Being I was a marketing consultant, I figured it might work as a bed and breakfast. I immediately joined the Belleayre lodging association and found myself in business. Trouble was, I never stayed in a bed and breakfast, nor knew how to run one. I had to learn everything I could within a month when the ski season would be in full swing. I talked with other innkeepers, joined bed and breakfast groups online etc.
My first guests arrived around New Years(I had opened the business on Dec 1 and was not in the Belleayre pamplet, only with the lodging representative who could tell people about my business. I really had a hard time as I was treating people as if they were my house guests and I had a group of 17 people!!!
I threw a large party and made it through that weekend and that season. I then buddied up with a lady who owned a large hostel in town and learned everything from her and she threw me her extra guests.
I now have been in business since Dec of 2001 and still am going strong. I made many mistakes, but now am an inn(lots of red tape to get thru that loophold), target marketed my business, added a vintage shop and next year my garage will be an entertainment business. We are very close to Woodstock NY and it is easy to get people to play here and show their art.
After 911, I had a old cabin and renamed it a Peace Cabin for meditation. People come here to stay and leave many items there from their travels.
I also put my Reiki and Aromatheapy skills to work and use that also here as another business.
I then started a Chamber of Commerce which is still limping along as it is not even one year old but is working. I have been put in the newspaper several times and will continue to do that.
So, if you want to open a bed and breakfast and are a woman alone(and I am 56 now), it is totally doable. At the moment I have two suites filled(I have people here who are attending a funeral and had gone to the funeral homes to recommend me). Networking is very important. My daugher was only 9-10 years old and I had to be home, now at 14 she is helpful to me and can make money here also doing many different things.
Please feel free to contact me about opening a business like this one and to become successful at it.
Joymoon
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)I really amazed how far you've come Great Job!! I'm 56 and need to be on my own very interested and finding out where to start.
Wonderful encouragement to those with big houses near major events like skiing or beaches, who need to find a way to earn money. A much older friend of mine in the city had a large house with apartments, that forty years ago, when she was single became a huge income. She turned it into a Boarding House. She made money for her needs then, and now that property has returned to apartments in her old age. The zoning has to be right, and permits obtained, if necessary.
One of her examples of making money was that Interstate road crews or major construction projects, who came into town to build or rebuild places needed a place to stay, so she had everything furnished, and would put 4-5 in one of the apartments, and under the boarding house....she made morning and evening meals for extra board money. It was good for them, and financially good for her. Being creative when hard times come is best way to survive.
Great article.
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