"practicing hospitality"
in North and
Central Vermont,
near Stowe, VT

Lake Cottage

Village Victorian has achieved recognition as a Green Hotel

“A Green Hotel is any Vermont lodging place that solidifies its commitment to environmental excellence by achieving a rigorous set of environmental standards.”

Village Victorian Bed and Breakfast

A Victorian Bed and Breakfast Inn Located 7 miles from Stowe, Vermont
Practicing hospitality in North/Central Vermont since 1999

Awarded highest rating for a B & B 
Read Philip's Top 10 Reasons why he loves Innkeeping!
Want to know what Philip was thinking about today? – visit his Blog – “Philip’s Musings”

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Updated July 4, 2008

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News from the Village Victorian Bed and Breakfast

June is fast drawing to a close. Business just keeps on booming. I never ever imagined we would be this busy during the slow months – April/May/June. While we are here continuing to try very hard to bless everyone who comes our way (many to escape for a weekend from all the busyness of their lives).... it seems there is no time for Philip and Ellen to escape from our busyness. :)

That’s not a complaint..... Just a comment. We are asking the Lord, in His perfect timing, to send us the ones who are of like mind to carry on the kind of thing that we do here..... sometimes I do say to Him... “How about tomorrow, Lord?”...... :) ......but we are settled in for whenever that will be. We do know it will be just the right time whether that is next month, next year or another 10 years down the road.

Did I just say “another 10 years”! Wow..... It’s true..... We start our 10th year of...... retirement :).... The first of July! Wouldn’t trade a minute of it. So many old friends returning....so many new friends being made. Ellen and I both continue in great health, for which we are very thankful. Things are good.

I was sharing with some guests recently and telling some of my stories. Those of you who have stayed with us know how difficult that is for me to just sit there and talk and how you have to drag the stories out of me... :) I got off on the oil industry greed thing.... and how our first stand against that was by dropping our weekend rates and just staying with our mid-week rates all week long. When it really got bad a couple years ago and gas went over $2 a gallon with talk of maybe even $3..... :) ......the State Tourism Dept was convinced that no one would ever drive to Vermont again and dreamed up this great promo for the lodging industry.... to offer, thru the State, $10 gas coupons to our guests to lure them to Vermont. That was absolutely the dumbest promotion I ever heard of (and all the major B&B Directories jumped on the bandwagon as well)..... So I wrote to the State and all the B&B directories that we advertised in and told them just that..... the dumbest.... nothing like telling all the greedy profiteers how much we love those gas prices..... here’s another $10 just to help you with your greed.... why don’t you just raise the prices some more and we’ll send you more money next year... :)

You know what....they did and still are... we are over $4 and heading for $5..... :) The State stopped the silliness but the Directories haven’t..... unreal. What the Lord told us to do instead was to take a stand against the greed in the Spirit and roll back our rates....which we did 2 years ago back in 2006...we basically went down $10 across the board back to our 2004 rates. Outside of personal conversations with some of the guests, this is the first time I have stated it publicly. It was never used to promote anything. We just started blessing people.... Including those who had booked months in advance.

When I questioned the Lord about it again this year, He told me that just because people will pay $20 to $30 a night more for our rooms, does not not make it right. Just leave your rates alone and bless people.....so that’s what we are doing in the B&B through the rest of 2008. I was saying this to that guest I mentioned when I started and said something that I might someday use as a promo on the web-sight. I told him we made a choice to make our rates “deliberately affordable” ! :)

Not only that.... But we had a specific word to borrow a whole bunch of money and start pumping it into the economy.... again this was to be a deliberate statement in the Spirit against all the negative talk about how the world’s economy is going to hell in a hand basket.

So we are doing two major projects this year...... The continuing of the remodeling of the Lake Cottage is one. We teased you with pictures of the construction hoping we would be ready by May 1st. Our contractor, Dean Gonyaw, moved along much more quickly than we had ever dreamed, finishing phase I, so we went to Phase II, then to Phase III..... It was unreal. Those were things we had hoped to start next fall!   (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Instead we had Dean start phase 4, the addition of another bedroom and bathroom, figuring we could keep going until the first guests arrived late May even if it wasn’t finished. Again we were amazed by what was accomplished. Except for a few finishing touches and landscaping, the new cottage is ready to go! Here are a couple pictures to help motivate you to click over to the Lake Cottage page where you can watch the new “Movie”.

We did just raise the cottage rates a little to help pay for some of this.....:) ..... but you’re gonna love it!

The second thing was the reconstruction of our gardens since the catastrophe of our big old Maple trees coming down in the storm last August! Our neighbor who owns the Annex, Bob Harvey, is a landscape architect....he gave me some quick lessons, lots of ideas and we began working them into a plan to make a Gazebo the centerpiece of the new gardens. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy a little walk thru the gardens below. I hope to have a new movie on the gardens page soon.

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

I think I’ll wait till the next newsletter for all our personal news since this is already getting way too long. I hope to be able to start squeaking in some time for our family blog.....just haven’t had time to get there, the past few months. I have been working hard at making regular postings on my personal blog which is very important to me. You can always find out what has been rattling thru my head by clicking on Philip’s Musings. I have been stunned and humbled by the number of visits we get to that page. It is regularly running 4 times the number of visits we get to our guests page! That is totally unreal to me and means people are making regular visits.

Don’t forget to visit Ellen’s little online gift shoppe! She has so much neat stuff in stock and the way she lights up every time an order comes in, is really a blessing to me. :) I enjoy being blessed too!

:)
Philip

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A Vermont Victorian Bed and Breakfast Inn
Located 7 miles from Stowe, VT

Your hosts, Ellen and Philip Wolff