INN VERMONT
with friends to explore historic landmarks and museums in and around Paris , and she also took French cooking classes !
The Dream Takes Shape
Several years before Peter ’ s retirement , Susan suggested the idea of purchasing a bed-and-breakfast . “ She quickly convinced me that owning a bed-andbreakfast would be a great thing to do after we retired ,” says Peter . “ We started thinking about it seriously in 2000 , around five years before we first visited the West Hill House B & B .”
When Peter and Susan moved back from France to Texas in 2003 , Susan began to extensively research potential bed-andbreakfast in the countries where they had lived in the past . “ We thought about purchasing a bed-and-breakfast in Canada ,” says Peter . “ We also briefly considered France and Scotland . France was a lovely place to live , but we decided that it would be too challenging to learn the ropes from a regulatory point of view . Scotland is my home country , but it might have been hard to get re-established there . We also understood that we had to find a place where guests would want to come all year . We knew that the place we bought the bed-and-breakfast had to have a lot of things for our guests to do in the summer and the winter .”
Peter says that he and Susan then made the decision to narrow the focus their search to the northeastern region of the United States . “ We would fly up to Montreal or Boston from Texas , rent a car , and visit six or seven properties at a time . We set up appointments with various agents and kept looking , but we didn ’ t find anything that quite ‘ clicked .’ After a year-and-a-half of consistent searching , we wondered if we were being too fussy . We also wondered if we were not destined to be the owners of a bed-and-breakfast . The 49th property we physically visited was the West Hill House B & B , and it was love at first sight .”
Susan recalls that she and Peter instantly knew that the West Hill House B & B was the perfect fit from the moment that they first walked through its doors in November 2005 . “ We both just felt at home when we walked in . We had visited properties in the Mad River Valley on previous occasions , but we had never seen anything as beautiful and welcoming as the West Hill House B & B .”
According to Peter , the West Hill House B & B had several qualities that made it stand out from the other bed-andbreakfasts that they had visited . “ The first thing that stood out to us was the location . The Mad River Valley is an exceptionally-stunning area , and the West Hill House B & B is located on a very quiet road . We wanted to find somewhere that was an ideal place for rest and recreation where our guests could get away from the noise of their city lives .”
In addition , the construction and renovation projects undertaken by the previous owners of the West Hill House B & B , Dotty Kyle and Eric Brattstrom , had significantly expanded its structure . “ The expansion added two things that were very important ,” notes Peter . “ Firstly , the West Hill House B & B has really nice bathrooms . In a lot of old properties , the bathrooms are shoehorned into corners , and they ’ re not spacious enough to comfortably accommodate bathtubs or showers . Secondly , the West Hill House B & B has enough space for eight wonderful guestrooms on the multiple different floors of the main building . In many of the bed-and-breakfasts that we visited , the rooms were incredibly cramped , and there weren ’ t any open areas where guests could congregate . Part of what makes the West Hill House B & B experience so wonderful is that we have large common areas that include two wood fireplaces . We also have a communal dining room where our guests can enjoy each other ’ s company at breakfast time .”
After Peter and Susan first visited the West
Hill House B & B in 2005 , Peter discovered a serendipitous coincidence that further affirmed his convictions regarding the property . “ It was one of the few B & B ’ s that we visited which had a phone system installed in all of the guest rooms as well as for the offices . Not only that , it turned out that the system was a Nortel system . I wasn ’ t involved in its design by any means , but I was quite involved with the business aspects of that system . It was a wonderful full-circle moment .”
In April 2006 , Peter and Susan closed on a purchase deal with the previous owners . After moving into the West Hill House B & B , they were greeted by their first guest very shortly after they arrived . “ We had just moved up from Texas , and we were still getting things situated ,” says Susan . “ At the time , Peter was still doing consulting work , and he happened to be away on a business trip . My sister came down to visit , and we sat together and waited for the first guest to arrive . When the first guest finally pulled up , a massive skunk was parading around the front porch . We called the guests from the top window and told them to come around back . It wasn ’ t the most gracious entrance , but it was nevertheless an auspicious beginning for our career as bed-and-breakfast owners .”
Over the next few weeks , they hosted several additional guests , and also hosted their first wedding . Susan recalls : “ It was a small wedding with just the couple and a lovely ceremony . They came back for the tenth anniversary of their wedding with their two young kids in 2016 . It was really great to see them again . We don ’ t normally allow young children , but we made an exception for them .” Over the next fifteen years , the MacLarens embarked on a series of targeted renovation campaigns . They redid the interior of the barn building and converted it into an event space , speeds , and joined a community solar grid in an effort to lessen their carbon footprint . They also became actively involved in the local community . Before
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