Issues → May/June 2010 → Home & Garden →
Do You Want to Start a B&B?
More than just "liking people"
by Robert Kaldenbach
Read about one couple's experience: Hawthorn Inn, Concord, MA
The first and ultimately the most important question is whether or not you are by temperament suited to innkeeping. You must be tolerant of people, most of whom are not going to be exactly like you.
If you cannot imagine yourself sleeping a wall's thickness away from snoring strangers, different ones every night, then keep your peace and don't try running a B&B.
Most hosts will say you have to "like people." That really doesn't help much as advice--everyone likes some people, but even Dr. Schweitzer didn't like everybody ...
You should not remodel your home to make it more suited to B&B operation. This new business should be as easy to get out of as into, and you don't want to be saddled with undoing a remodeling if you change your mind.
--Robert Kaldenbach, former Nantucket innkeeper, May 1984
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