The Innkeeping Blog

PAII staff members, Michele McVay (Director of Education and Events) and Ingrid Thorson (Marketing and Communications Manager), recently spent a day with Kathryn White of the Beechmont Inn in Hanover, PA. The purpose of their trip was to get a sneak peek into the life of an innkeeper. I asked Michele to chronicle the day for our blog readers. The photo to the right is of Ingrid, Kathryn and Michele. – Jay Karen, PAII President & CEO

Michele wrote…

The trip to Hanover, PA near Gettysburg started out with much frustration, two lanes shut down at the Ben Franklin Bridge, two mile back up, and running late already from dropping my screaming one year old off at daycare. I finally make my way to Ingrid’s on the north side of Philly and after picking up my second much needed cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts we are finally off. It just takes minutes on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to be removed from the sounds, smells and traffic of the city. I take a deep breath and exhale, glad to just sit back and let Ingrid drive. We stop along the way to pick up a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse, we couldn’t possibly arrive without a gift and we may all need a drink after our host lets us in her kitchen.

The drive to Hanover went quickly, with Ingrid and I laughing and sharing stories and nervously sharing our trepidation about what Kathryn will think of our cooking skills or rather lack thereof. Kathryn, of course, is Kathryn White, long time PAII member and innkeeper extraordinaire of the charming and impressive 1830’s, 5,000 square foot federal, 7-room Beechmont Inn. We arrived safely to be greeted by the very hospitable Kathryn and were put to work almost immediately.

One of our first tasks was to make cookies for the guests for afternoon snack. Kathryn mistakenly thought Ingrid and I wouldn’t need a recipe to make such a simple snack, but no. Ingrid and I worked as a team, blending the ingredients, learning how to use a mixer for the first time and delicately doling out each clump of dough which eventually would turn into warm mint chocolate chip cookies, but low and behold all good things must come to an end.

I reach down into the oven to pull out the perfectly golden cookies only to lose part of my grip and in slow motion the yummy cookies jumped to their death on the bottom of Kathryn’s beautiful Viking-esque stove. Luckily the collapse only caused 5 mint chocolate chip cookie deaths. I proceeded to scrape the remains out of the bottom of the oven for the next half hour. Luckily this wasn’t the only batch and we had enough for the guests who were staying that evening.

All the guests had checked in by about 6pm although I am told that arrivals can oftentimes be at all hours of the afternoon and well into the evening.

The rest of the day included being shown around the Beechmont, meeting Kathryn’s dear husband Tom, and asking her so many questions about innkeeping, her experience, her previous life and what led her to the profession of innkeeping, that she ended up with laryngitis!

Our day came to a close around 9pm and we retired to the wonderfully comfortable Hawthorne Room exhausted, and wondering how Kathryn does it. Ingrid and I had only experienced a small handful of guests let alone a full house! It begins to dawn on me that Ingrid and I actually had it easy.

The alarm clock blurted out of the still and quiet darkness far too early. “It couldn’t possibly be 5:45 a.m.” I thought; it still feels like the middle of the night.

One of the guests had an early morning meeting an hour away from the inn, and Kathryn being the accommodating person she is, of course, agreed to have breakfast ready for our guest at 7:30am so he could promptly be out the door at 8:00. No pressure for Ingrid and me, who had been asked to come up with the menu or at least the recipe for the breakfast entree and actually make it. Mind you breakfast at my house includes nothing more complex than Eggo’s, and we had committed to making stuffed French toast. Now I know all the innkeepers are scratching their heads right now wondering what’s so difficult about that, but for two kitchen novices it was like taking the SAT.

Kathryn was nothing less than a whirling dervish in the morning, the epitome of organized chaos, yes an oxymoron, but somehow the only description I can offer. This was Kathryn’s element, and she even offered us coffee before we started…bless her. She whipped up refreshing fruit smoothies, baked pears with brown sugar, scrambled eggs with fresh herbs from her garden while Ingrid and I, rather reminiscent of Lucy and Ethel, jointly put together the stuffed French toast (admittedly with secret ingredients Kathryn offered us that made what was delicious even better). I felt like we had been admitted into the secret sorority of breakfast chefs. I thought I couldn’t wait to get home and whip up something similar for my own family. I think my husband would be so impressed jewelry might be involved.

We had a couple of other guests at 8:30am, and like our early morning guest, we received the best thanks ever…a clean plate.

We departed around the same time we had arrived only 24 hours before, although it seemed like a lifetime since we had arrived…we left Hanover with a new found appreciation for every innkeeper, not that I didn’t have respect for the hard work and life-choice before, but with a deeper understanding of the kind of person who is compelled to take on this incredibly demanding and rewarding profession. This is HARD WORK and anyone who isn’t up for the challenge obviously would not last long. Kathryn expressed the need to have some semblance of balance in your life to keep from getting burned out, but in a short period of time I came to the realization that it really takes a very special person with a certain kind of drive to take this profession on and succeed. I’m frankly humbled. I’m left with the desire to work as hard for the members who make up this association as innkeepers do for their own guests.

We just hope to be invited back again. It always feels wonderful to have made a new friend.