(Mike’s story): As a child in the California suburbs, I certainly never dreamed of helping to operate a bed & breakfast in Southside Virginia.
But things just happen. When I was living in Washington, D.C., I met this great woman, Pickett Craddock, who had a farmhouse with 400 acres in in Cluster Springs. She had no intention of ever moving to California.
I first visited the place in summer, 1981, an engineering friend told us the old building was a “bottomless pit” of future repairs.
But slowly, over time, she found the right people to help her fix it up, including Joe, a former preschool student, now in his 50s.
She had always wanted to open a B&B but was dissuaded on our honeymoon in 1985, when she saw how much work was involved at the Mainstay B&B in Cape May, N.J.
But she persisted and opened a summer-only B&B, Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast, in 1988. She even took the Mainstay’s recipe for California Egg Puff and made it into her signature dish, Cluster Springs Egg Puff. The B&B was open year-around (without the plantation name) when we moved to Cluster Springs permanently in 2021.
When I travel, I am more prone to stay at a Marriott or a Motel 6, but I went along with the idea and have found numerous benefits.
We don’t have to travel as much: people come here instead. Some of them were great news sources for articles. I savored talking to a guy who rode his bike across Virginia, stopping at inns along the way. There was an emergency room doctor, a race car driver, a musician who jammed with me as I played piano.
There have been a few bad experiences along the way. We warned a couple not to go into the attic, but of course they went anyway. It used to be a children’s school over 100 years ago, and it had weird drawings on the wall. Terrified, the couple fled during the night, figuring the house was haunted. They even demanded a refund.
One woman had very strict dietary guidelines in a two-page sheet of paper. Any Parmesan cheese had to be from either Italy or France. When Pickett was gone for a few days, I met this lady’s requirements for breakfast, but her sister didn’t like this food and wanted something different. So I made her French toast, which was awful. And I spilled a glass of water on her friend. We got a terrible review. “Fried bread” is what she called my dish. I have not been asked to cook breakfast since.
Apart from such disasters, there are heartwarming moments when you feel good about hosting guests.
A couple driving a Hyundai electric car from South Carolina called on Saturday night asking to use our Tesla destination charger. The wife, in tears, said the Christmas parade blocked the route to the Microsoft charger, and they had trouble using the Tesla supercharger at Sheetz. They were going to miss their grandson’s concert in Farmville. “We have called a tow truck. Can we charge at your B&B and spend the night?”
We were busy with a big event the next day at our house. Normally we have a two-night minimum, but hey…this is the Christmas season!
So we had a nice conversation with them later about the benefits and drawbacks of electric cars. People we never would have met.
Then, a lady called and said she was having trouble finding a room because of the opening of the casino Danville. Pickett scrambled to clean a room, and the lady is sleeping upstairs.
We don’t have a manger, but yes, there was room at the inn!
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Reasons for the visits vary all over the map: Weddings, funerals, reunions, genealogy searches, house hunting, car racing. Pickett does all of the cooking but she has someone help clean once a week and others to mow the yard. Me? Well, I help clean up after breakfast but can’t do much besides write press releases.
Business is better now that we are operating year around, with a lot of guests in the spring and fall (but not winter.)
What happens when we are too old to run this place? Your guess is as good as ours.