In My Words: Kimberly Burton Allen, Writer

Post-Labor Day Beach, Southampton So this summer was The Experiment. Chris and I have owned and operated our bed and breakfast for 17 years. We'd like to sell, and move back to California. (Okay, full disclosure: *I* would like to sell and move back to Laguna Beach. Chris is still on the fence. But he feels that I moved East in 1992 for him, so he owes me. At this point, I'm taking him up on it.) We were tired. Borderline burnout. So last year about this time, we thought Okay, if we aren't going to sell anytime soon, what about bringing in managers? Which, if you've followed this blog, you know we did. And they did an awesome job for their 6-month contract, which ended September 30. Over the summer, which we spent back in Laguna Beach, Chris had shoulder surgery, followed by months of rehab. But we still enjoyed our first summer off from work in all of Chris's working life. (Being a self-employed writer for 10 years prior to opening ABM, you might argue ...

In January of 2002 Chris and I closed escrow on a great historical property with the intention of running a bed and breakfast in the style that both of us loved: warm, home-like spaces where guests were welcomed with care but not intruded upon; wonderful creative breakfast fare served daily on our wedding china and crystal; the chance to act as ambassadors to an area we'd lived in for ten years and wanted to share. In a few years, A Butler's Manor was named the top-ranked bed and breakfast in the Hamptons, a ranking we continue to enjoy and be proud of. It's our baby, carefully curated and loved and agonized over and gratified by.  Our blood has run in this business, our sweat literally poured into every inch of the ground it sits on, every corner and crevice of the structure. But it's time to stretch, to find where next we need to be. The time (market, buyers) has not been right to sell, so last fall, we decided upon Plan B. In order to grow and change and transiti...

Mission accomplished.  We had a very enjoyable and successful meeting this week with Dina and Ralph, and beginning next April, they will be taking over the reins of ABM for 2019 Spring and Summer season.  Buoyed by equal parts excitement and trepidation, I s lept poorly the night after our interview. Woke numerous times worried that I was going to be sick. This is our baby! Stepping away and letting others run the inn we've created, nourished and grown is going to be tough. But, as I keep reminding myself, it's the only way to move forward instead of marching in place. Snow filling in the spaces in the rocks Driving home to California from Colorado, it appears a snowstorm had passed west of Denver in the time we'd been visiting. While (for the most part) the roads were clear and dry, snow scaped the peaks and canyons of the Rockies. Even prettier, the fine snow had settled into the wind-and water-carved sandstone buttes of lower Monument Valley, creating dim...

Winter sabbatical. This is the time we are generally parked on a bench on the boardwalk of Laguna’s Main Beach, watching the waves and the Lagunatics.  Yet yesterday we tossed computer, a small suitcase, and one very confused dog into the back of the Subaru and hit the road East.   We’re en route to Denver, currently winding through snow-skirted red sandstone mesas in Utah. A third of the way back across the country.  While a road trip is always an adventure, the purpose of this one is to enable a new adventure altogether: We are interviewing the top candidates to manage our bed and breakfast next season. That’s right, Chris and I are looking to step away from being the active, onsite innkeepers. Turning over the reins is going to be a huge adventure, one that in a way feels like stepping off the stepped buttes currently surrounding us into the abyss. So much as yet unknown. Will this work? Will new managers breathe a little fresh life...

Brazil, IN. Home of the Popcorn Festival.  Three long, straight days of driving on I-70. We called Indiana's stretch of it Roadkill Alley because we counted twelve deer, five raccoon, and who knows how many smaller animal carcasses before we reached the Illinois State line. From the "You Had One Job..." file... On the plus side, the fall colors are beautiful, with golds and yellows becoming predominant the further west we go. The fields in Kansas are in the end stages of clearing their wheat crops, though millet crops still remain. Some fields, already harvested and plowed, are showing the budding green of winter ryegrass. A few heads of black cattle dot the landscape. We are listening to John Sandford novels which makes time pass swiftly. We were staying with friends in Aurora, CO on Halloween night, and what a treat it was to see so many trick-or-treaters come to their door. We've been in New York for 26 (!!) years, and over that entire period of time I...

That's a wrap! Welllllllll...not quite the California we have in mind... We said goodbye to nearly a full house of guests at the bed and breakfast yesterday morning and by 11:30 AM, Chris, Sydney and I were on the road to California. Swarm of starlings in Carlisle, PA A Pantera on the Long Island Expressway! #70sflashback The first day's drive west is always the most stressful as it encompasses the maniacal Long Island Expressway (driving experience apparently optional, merge expertise nonexistent), Belt Parkway traffic and I-95 through New Jersey (self-explanatory to anyone who has ever driven it). I think my blood pressure finally started to drop when we hit the Penna Pike, I-76 West.  Forget the bed. I like being smashed into this tiny space. Sydney eschews her comfy bed in the back of the Outback in favor of wedging herself into the space between my yoga bag and the retractable screen, and sleeps without so much as putting her head up until...

Celebrating Chris's birthday On the penultimate day of our cross country trip home, we stopped on the western edge of NJ to stay with our friends Gregory Anne and Mark. Mark runs a large estate comprising 400 acres, quite a bit of which is farmed. At this time of year, of course, all the fields are fallow. And full of game. Sydney: Oh Oh Oh My God. Let me the heck off this leash, I have WORK to do!!! There's something moving in there... And when she couldn't beg a trip outside (no way was she being let off the lead; she'd chase something into the next county), she was camped in front of the lovely French doors staring at the Great Outdoors. All over her face: Can I live here forever? Just wait, we told her. We're almost home. So the following day, on the first sunny day since we left California, we drove the final few hours to Southampton, arriving early afternoon. After we unloaded the car, I walked Sydney on a lead the perimeter of the back garde...