At 6 p.m. on a Sunday in late June, Heather Martino sinks into the
living room chair, exhausted and ready to eat her first meal of the
day. She takes a deep breath and recounts how she spent the day fussing
over the six guests who had spent last night at her home.
Not once does she complain. Busier is better in the life of an innkeeper.
Heather, 28, and her husband Roland Martino, 34, own the Beach Drive
Inn Bed and Breakfast in St. Petersburg, Fla. The couple bought the
house in January and opened the doors for business June 16.
The journey from then to now has been a stressful one, filled with
landscaping, remodeling, cooking, cleaning, paperwork and countless
shopping trips. Now they are poised to make it work, joining a growing
part of Florida’s hospitality business.
Florida is home to as many as 400 bed-and-breakfasts, says Kathleen
Hurley, president of Florida Bed and Breakfast Inns. Although
Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Key West are the major hubs for B and
Bs, St. Petersburg boasts 10 — a fairly large concentration
proportionate to its population, says Lori Rosso, board member of the
St. Petersburg Association of Bed and Breakfast Inns.
The Martinos didn’t set out to join the industry. Both were busy and
successful at their respective careers: Heather owns a mortgage
company; Roland owns an assisted living facility. But while looking for
a new house after they married a year ago, they stumbled across the
for-sale sign in front of the Vinoy House Bed and Breakfast at 532
Beach Drive NE. The house, built in 1910, was the former residence of
St. Petersburg developer Aymor Vinoy Laughner, who built the grand
Vinoy Hotel across the street.
Heather had always wanted to live in a large home. Running a
bed-and-breakfast would give them a way to make that dream affordable
and, perhaps, profitable.
They paid $1.2 million for the seven-bedroom home, and knew they were
buying some trouble along with their fantasy. The yard was ungroomed
and littered. The house was in obvious need of remodeling. But the
extent of challenges they bought was daunting. Not only did they have
to repair a range of minor code violations left over from the previous
owner, they also had to repair the run-down inn’s sagging reputation
among other B and B owners.
“The house was left in pretty bad shape,” Heather says.
Restoring it to its original graciousness, and creating a sense of
comfort for their guests, proved a six-month journey that tested their
patience, persistence and marriage.
The newlyweds lived at Heather’s condo while they made the B and B
livable. They hired professionals and leaned on relatives to help with
the restoration while they tried to keep pace with their other jobs.
They started from the outside and worked their way in.
Weeds, beer bottles and garbage were scattered in front of the house.
It took several hands and several days to plant the flowers and prune
the shrubbery that now occupy the well-manicured lawn. It took an
artist another week to repaint the porch with murals of palm leaves,
vines and sunflowers.
Heather refused to put furniture in the house until it had been treated
for termites and rodents. A leaky roof, faulty plumbing and a sprinkler
system needed to be fixed. The wooden floorboards needed re-sanding,
and the blemished walls repainting.
The next step was to unpack 50 to 60 boxes filled with the couple’s
belongings, the result of combining two fully furnished residences.
They filled the foyer and dining room, but most of the furniture and
accessories Heather and Roland owned were too modern for the
antique-themed bed-and-breakfast, which meant new ones were in order.
While Heather picked out bedspreads and furniture for the six guest
bedrooms, hired help painted the walls and fixed up the bathrooms,
which were in need of new fixtures and plumbing work.
“We’ve made so many trips to Home Depot, they practically know us by name,” Heather says.
More than 300 trips, 80 gallons of paint and $100,000 later, the Martinos were ready to open.
Then came the real work: running a bed-and-breakfast.
The life of an innkeeper is not for the weak of heart, Roland and Heather say.
Innkeepers are on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Martinos estimate they work up to 70 hours a week at the B and B.
That is in addition to their other jobs, which they now run out of
their home. Heather got into the mortgage business through her mother,
and plans to continue running her own firm, Sunshine Mortgage and
Investments Inc. Roland plans to sell Casa Marti ALF, the 60-bed
assisted living home he owns in Tampa, and devote himself full-time to
the B and B.
The couple came to inn- keeping with combined experience dealing in
real estate and management. But there were new things to learn — like
cooking.
“I never quite pictured myself that domestic-type guy,” Roland says. “And now I’m wearing an apron.”
Now he is the ultimate homemaker, not only experimenting with new
recipes daily in the kitchen, but also learning the proper way to fold
a napkin and how to shape a towel into an animal.
The couple gets up at 6:30 a.m. to make breakfast for guests, another
adjustment for Roland, who classifies himself as a night owl.
After breakfast, the cleaning begins — first dishes, then the rooms.
For now, Roland and Heather do the cleaning themselves, with occasional
help from relatives, but they hope to eventually hire a maid.
When they aren’t cleaning or cooking, they are grocery shopping and keeping the books. And they still make trips to Home Depot.
While the Martinos learn the trade of inn-keeping, they are also still
learning what it means to be married, a special challenge when home is
work. The say their first year of marriage was tested when it became
less about building a relationship and more about building a house. And
now that the B and B is open, they are learning to share their home
with strangers.
The couple’s private space is limited to one bedroom and a study. An
anniversary trip to Alaska was canceled after the money was used to buy
the house instead. Vacations now are of the micro-variety – a trip to
Starbucks or taking Angel Love, the household dog, to the park.
As romantic as the B and B life seems to guests, it can be arduous for
the innkeepers. On average, B and B owners sell out after five to eight
years.
But the work becomes doable and fun if a routine is developed and help
is hired, according to established St. Petersburg innkeepers.
Kathy and Peter Plautz bought the Mansion House Bed and Breakfast at
105 Fifth Ave. NE.two years ago. They had just retired to Florida from
Wisconsin, where they had been real estate brokers, and had not planned
on becoming innkeepers. But when they saw the Mansion House for sale,
they decided to give it a shot.
For the first year, Kathy, 57, and Peter, 66, managed the 12-room inn
by themselves, and hired housekeeping help. They learned to cook and
play host to dozens of guests every day.
Kathy took the lead and they divvied up the jobs: she was in charge of
the business side while Peter took care of entertainment and customer
service.
“I think couples make mistakes when they are both trying to do things, when there is no communication,” she says.
After a year of nonstop work, the Plautzes were joined by Kathy’s
sister, who works at the inn as an assistant and masseuse. Kathy and
Peter now leave her in charge of the inn for weekends so they can
escape to their boat.
Unlike the Martinos and the Plautzes, Dennis Youschak had always
dreamed of owning a B and B. Dennis, 59, worked in aircraft maintenance
for American Airlines. His wife, Jewly, 54, was a sales support manager
for an apparel company. When they retired, they bought a retirement
home at 126 Fourth Ave. NE, and turned it into the 12-bedroom Bay Bed
and Breakfast.
The Youschaks came to the business in 1999 without any background. It
was six years before they were able to take time off. This year they
hired a chef and housekeeper, and now have time to spend at a small
house they bought as their private retreat.
“You’ve got to watch out for burnout,” Dennis Youschak says. “It can creep up on you and you don’t even realize it.”
During the past 20 years, the bed-and-breakfast industry has grown
exponentially, according to the Professional Association of Innkeepers
International. In 2004, there were about 20,000 B and Bs registered in
the United States.
But innkeepers seem to agree there is still plenty of business to go around.
According to Youschak, the business builds on itself: the more B and Bs
that open in an area, the more an area is known for its B and Bs, and
the more travelers will seek out B and Bs there.
People stay at bed-and-breakfasts instead of hotels because of the
sense of hominess and personal attention they receive, says Hurley,
president of the Florida innkeepers group. While B and Bs often aren’t
very child-friendly, Hurley say she expects the demand for this type of
accommodation to grow in popularity with both vacationers and business
travelers.
Steve Moss says he stayed at the Beach Drive Inn soon after it opened
in order to get away from the constant crowd of people at the Vinoy
Hotel, where he was participating in a ballroom dance competition.
“It’s more informal and personal,” Moss says. “I like the more homey environment rather than a sterile hotel environment.”
As of June 24, the Beach Drive Inn had housed eight guests, and the
Martinos are optimistic about the future of their fledgling business.
They have set money aside from their other businesses to subsidize the
B and B until it begins to turn a profit on its own.
A night at the Beach Drive Inn runs $140 during the low season (June to
October) and $260 in the high season (November to May). Rooms include a
private bathroom and breakfast in the morning.
The Martinos plan to someday travel and eventually have children, but
for at least the next few years, life will revolve around the inn. For
now, the couple is just enjoying entertaining their guests and trying
to make things as comfortable as possible for them.
