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Running bed-and-breakfast keeps men happy but working harder than they ever have before
B&B innkeepers keep long hours and hectic schedules to ensure guest comfort.
Date published: 7/17/2005
By KRISTIN DAVIS ENDI MILLER spent Inside, innkeepers Patrick DeCrane and Michael Thomas replaced towels and tidied rooms, answered calls and poured over record books. In a kitchen closed to guests, DeCrane drafted the next day's breakfast menu, then began preparations for Sunday afternoon tea. In the dining room, Thomas replaced linens and reset the table with china and crystal. When Wendi Miller's husband, Shawn, returned from a day of traipsing through Fredericksburg's battlefields, they settled into a comfortable room with fresh flowers and a glistening pitcher of ice. The couple came to the Bowling Green bed-and-breakfast from Pennsylvania for their 13th wedding anniversary. DeCrane and Thomas, who rose before the sun came up, worked late into the evening. Guests are often unaware of the long, sometimes hectic, schedules of innkeepers, they said. And that's the beauty of it. "A good innkeeper makes it look easy," said Anne Bolin, who opened The Bell House Bed and Breakfast in Colonial Beach five years ago. "If things go smoothly and everyone's having a good time, it's because it looks work free." More and more people are choosing to stay at B&Bs, according to the Professional Association of Innkeepers International. Twenty thousand inns serve more than 55 million guests a year. Travelers chose them for the atmosphere, the intimacy and the personal attention. Innkeeping seems like an attractive venture to a lot of people, Thomas said. And it can be. There's the decorating, the cooking and the entertaining. Bolin, who runs the four-bedroom, four-bath B&B on the Potomac River without any outside help, says her guests are the best part of the job. "I learn about all kinds of people from everywhere," she said. DeCrane and Thomas also enjoy the company of others. They serve newlyweds and wedding parties, history hunters and snowbirds on the way to Florida. Sometimes, they host a house full of guests who've come to town for a funeral. All these people are interesting, the pair said.
Date published: 7/17/2005
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