For the last three months I’ve featured expat-owned businesses in Italy and today I’m offering up a double feature.
Baur B&B is owned by not one, but two expats in Italy-Diana and Michael-who moved from the US to Acqui Terme, Piedmont in 2003 to open their full-service bed and breakfast.
It is an incredible story and one I am happy to share with you today at My Bella Vita. Without further ado, I present to you my recent interview with Diana of Baur Bed and Breakfast.
1. You say on your site you and your husband “gave it all up to follow a dream.” What inspired you to do that?
Several things came together at the same time. We had done several corporate moves, either for his job or mine, the last being the largest — we moved from Philadelphia to Hamburg, Germany for Micha to become the Geschaeftsfuehrer (fancy German word for president) of Staples, The Office Superstore’s German division. I gave up my career in hotel and restaurant design and dove into the King of all Expat Professions – I taught English for seven years. I ended up as an Executive Language Consultant helping top business people prepare for job interviews and presentations in the UK and the States. But at the same time I did a pottery apprenticeship, since it was the first time I actually had time to develop my creativity.
Neither of us was crazy about all of the stress or travel involved, although living that life in Germany was a fantastic opportunity. We always said, if it gets to be too much, we would do something else. The point came when the company wanted to centralize and move us to Brussels – new culture, new language, not where we wanted to be. It was enough. We had been long thinking about getting a vacation home in Italy and switched that gear over to finding a permanent home. We wanted the next big move to be our choice, not the company’s. When thinking of how we might want to support ourselves, the idea of renting rooms for international guests grew organically.
2. How did you choose Piedmont? Do either of you have ties to the area?
My family comes from Emilia Romagna. All four grandparents immigrated to New York from the hills of Bardi and Berceto between 1915 and 1920. We also both have always had a deep affinity for this country. But we looked in several regions before deciding on Piemonte. Piemonte had everything we were looking for – beauty, an undiscovered culture, food and wine, good infrastructure, good proximity to both the Mediterranean (one hour) to the rest of Europe, good major airports, and three great Italian cities, all very diverse, within 2 hours: Torino, Milan and Genoa.
3. I see your B&B is a work in progress. What other projects do you have in the works?
We are presently constructing a third room. A few months ago we finished a beautiful wine cellar, the year before that a gourmet kitchen and pottery studio. We have a couple of additional renovations after the one we are working on, but have become philosophical — we will get done what we can get done and not stress about the rest. The Italian way of thinking has started to rub off on us.
This is definitely a ” work in progress “. Construction is evident; we don’t try to hide it (although we come to a grinding halt as soon as our season starts). I always worried about how the guests would view this — but in reality, they love that aspect of it. We have had people come back five and six times now over the last five years, always excited to see what new thing we have done. The guests feel part of our lives and part of the process of this project, which they clearly are.
4. I know people think the life of a innkeeper is glamorous, but tell us the nitty gritty. What is not so fun about running a B&B?
We’re a full service B&B, and provide the guests with lots of individualized attention. We do day long wine tours which end with dinner here at the B&B, we have cooking classes, I offer pottery classes, and we spend lots of time each day with guests on itinerary planning, reservation making, and other concierge functions. I bake every day. Our breakfasts are 5 to 6 different dishes, each prepared as the guests would want them, taking into consideration dietary requirements as well.
We find that in order to stay “fresh” for our guests, and to deliver the level of service that we do, it is key that we get our rest and a bit of downtime during the season — meaning blocking out a few nights off every month — if we don’t, then we do get exhausted. Since this was a post mid-life change for us, we have to watch our energy level. We would rather have a little less income but enjoy the process more, and be raring to go when the guests come.
If you would ask me mid-season, I think that I would say that ironing sheets would be the thing that puts me over the top sometimes:) We have 100% linen on our beds and each sheet can take up to 20 minutes to iron. I am thinking of investing in one of those awesome Miele “Mangle” roller ironing systems next year to cut down on that task.
5. You and your husband obviously adore your jobs, but what is the one thing you love most of all?
Oh, it would absolutely be the guests. We have unbelievably interesting people come and stay here. The discussions get philosophical; we end up talking about everything and more. We have had guests from Italy,the US, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Brussels, Norway, Sweden, Australia, China, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, England, Canada, Tunisia… I am sure I am forgetting a country or two. What a gift that is for us! The guests enrich our lives every single day.
For more information on staying at Baur B&B, visit their website or read Diana’s blog, Creative Structures. Other expat-owned businesses that have been featured here at My Bella Vita include:
Bella Baita B&B: An Italian Vacation in Piedmont
Bella Vita Italia: An Italy Travel Concierge
Etiquette;Something Old, Something New; A Wedding Invitation Both Traditionally and Environmentally Correct
The Washington Post June 17, 1993 | Jura Koncius Washington may be the birthplace of the ultimate environmentally correct wedding invitation.
The people receiving the 150 formal ivory hand-engraved invitations for the wedding later this month of Kristen Helen Schaefer, a Harvard medical student, and Tad Ashley Gallion, a graduate student in environmental studies at Yale, undoubtedly had no idea the envelopes and their contents were an environmental breakthrough.
The invitation looked very much like the one that the majority of America’s annual 1.6 million first-time brides and grooms choose. It was folded over. It came on off-white paper. It had an inner and outer envelope and a piece of tissue paper.
To environmentalists, the Schaefer wedding invitation represents a something as welcome as dolphin-safe tuna. According to Lesley Macherelli, who orchestrated the order at La Bottega Fine Papers at Chevy Chase Pavilion, “It joined what were until now two totally irreconcilable issues in the paper industry: recycled paper and formal social papers.” Although interest in recycled paper products is escalating as fast as environmental consciousness is spreading, they are still not easily available in top of the line social papers, according to Macherelli. “While the recycled social papers that are on the market might be cute, or fun, they are rarely elegant and they are never formal,” she says. “So even those people most committed to the use of recycled papers were forced to abandon their commitment if they wanted to issue a formal wedding invitation.” Of course, today, wedding invitations can be anything from handwritten notes decorated with dried flowers to hot pink invitations with purple ink and envelopes filled with confetti. “Brides today are very varied,” says Barbara Tober, editor in chief of Bride’s Magazine. “Some want the traditional pound cake, some want chocolate. Individuality is key in this country today: Every single part of the traditional wedding is being personalized.” Individuality proved a lengthy and complicated process for the Schaefer family. The father, Washington attorney William Schaefer, was given the task of reconciling the differences of his wife and daughter. Bride Kristen, as well as her husband-to-be, wanted a recycled paper; the bride’s mother, Sharon Schaefer, a psychotherapist, preferred a traditional invitation, specifically the familiar ecru style on stiff paper produced by Crane & Co. in Dalton, Mass.
“Six months ago, all I knew about wedding invitations is that occasionally I would get them and sometimes I would stick them in a personal file as a nice memento,” says William Schaefer. “I like traditional wedding invitations myself. I saw that this was a potential clash of generations when both were saying they wanted to accommodate the other. My wife said, `Fine, as long as it doesn’t look like cheap paper.’ ” They began by visiting Copenhaver Fine Engravers, since 1896 one of Washington’s most social stationers. According to Isaac C. Lycett, president of Copenhaver, 90 percent of their wedding invitations are on heavy cotton fiber ecru paper by Crane, in the standard invitation 40 pound weight, which is almost twice as heavy as a regular letterhead sheet. Lycett says the Schaefer request was not the first. “Yes, environmental concerns are more important today than they were. We do consider that Crane’s is environmentally friendly because it is made of scraps of cotton. It’s not the case of someone having to grow a field of cotton especially for this paper. A tree was never killed for this. In fact, using Crane’s for invitations is just as damaging to the environment as eating cold cereal.” Crane does make a commercial recycled paper but not a social wedding paper that has been recycled in the strictest sense. It uses “recovered fiber,” but Crane cannot call this paper recycled because it was not once used by consumers. go to site essing wedding invitations
“Our wedding invitations are made from 100 percent cotton,” explains James Manning, director of public relations for Crane & Co. The paper company, founded in 1801, produces papers for brides and presidents, as well as the paper for U.S. currency. The recovered cotton is a byproduct of the ginning process, the fiber that remains on the cotton seed and would otherwise go into a landfill or be used for something other than making paper.
But it does not meet the current Environmental Protection Agency definition of “post consumer waste or recycled.” Furthermore, for a paper to be labeled recycled, it must contain 50 percent or more recovered paper, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.
(A little-known fact is that some of the cotton used in the most correct Crane paper comes from cutting scraps from underwear factories. But that’s another story.) Although the salesperson at Copenhaver explained the process to the Schaefers, they weren’t sold. “It was still not recycling paper products,” says William Schaefer. “I said, `Look, they aren’t cutting down any trees – what is the problem?’ but Kristen said no.” Next stop, Macherelli’s La Bottega, a small high-end store specializing in innovative custom-made invitations and hand engraving. “We have a lot of Washington people who ask for recycled paper,” says Macherelli. “As a population, maybe we express our social conscience a little more. It’s typically a very private issue. But this is a new age of brides who are willing to toss out some things to live by other things.” Although Macherelli had never tried to find all the materials needed to compose a recycled traditional wedding invitation, she set to work looking for “the nicest, cleanest recycled paper we could find” in the three weights needed to make the different parts of the wedding invitation. It was a tough task that took several months and many meetings with the Schaefers. Paper distributors sent samples from all over the country. She finally found Kimberly Clark’s Neenah Environment line in ivory wove, made with 100 percent recycled materials. go to web site essing wedding invitations
The envelopes had to be handmade, and La Bottega actually hand glued all of them together. “No, the envelopes aren’t as heavy as Crane’s,” Macherelli admits. Everything was hand engraved, and the cost was comparable to that of a traditional engraved invitation.
“We’re very pleased with the results, and more importantly, the customer was thrilled,” says Macherelli, who hopes the paper industry will begin to answer the call from “customers committed to the future with a sense of propriety firmly fixed in a genteel past.” And the bride? She was too busy on her surgery rotation schedule and other wedding arrangements to return phone calls. But her father says, “The whole thing was absolutely silly at times. My wife would say, `Bill, why aren’t you doing this or that. What about the band? But we finally got them all, got them mailed, and we are all thrilled.” Jura Koncius
