What a great turnout at the PAII New England Innkeeping Conference & Trade show held this month in Nashua, New Hampshire.  All of us at The B&B Team appreciated the opportunity to meet with some of the true veterans of Innkeeping.

Among those veterans are friends and colleagues, Marian Burns, Innkeeper from Mira Monte Inn in Bar Harbor, Maine and Rick Litchfield, Innkeeper from the Captain Lord Mansion in Kennebunkport, Maine.  Unfortunately Rick Litchfield’s dynamic other half, Bev Davis, was not able to attend, as she was busy at the mansion decorating. What else! What these innkeepers have in common is over 30 years of Innkeeping under their respective belts. Not many out there can claim this number!  Besides their longevity they are also terrific and successful innkeepers. We believe part of their success can be attributed to never, never stopping the process of educating themselves at conferences. We didn’t ask them, but I am sure they have been to as many conferences (if not more) than the years they have been innkeepers. 

Pictured at The B&B Team’s booth (from left to right) are Peggy and Peter Scherman, Jay Karen (President and CEO of PAII), Marian Burns, Rick Litchfield, and Janet and Rick Wolf.

There is always something new and exciting going on at the Captain Lord Mansion, a recent renovation of a former conference space into a spa and lounge and a new state of the art kitchen are the latest. Their guests also have a history of longevity.  Ten visits to the mansion will earn a guest an engraved stone in their “Memory Garden”. Needless to say, there are lots of bricks and more to come.

Marian at Mira Monte is very interested in solar energy and has installed panels on a portion of her buildings and hopes to install more in the future.  She is planning a solar workshop in the spring to bring guests in to enjoy Marian’s ‘Innspring’ package plus some education.  Marian is a native of Bar Harbor and is a wealth of information about her beautiful part of Maine.  Guests come back time and again to extract knowledge of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park from this thirty year veteran.  

Marian, Rick and Bev have never put their inns on auto pilot and continue to renew their pilot licenses!  Are there any other thirty year veterans out there?  We would love to hear from you.