I meant to sit down over the holidays and recap our year at The Manor, but life just got in the way; between the end year guests in all the properties, building a new spec home, and working with our private clients time ran away.
As I write this blog, I am actually en route to FL to see the progress on a renovation I am working on with a dear friend/client who I met when she choose our house for her daughter’s wedding.
They were our very first wedding guests in June 2021. Two house renovations, a son’s engagement party, and friend reunion later, I am very aware that this magical house takes care of me as much as I take care of her.
Being able to share The Manor with all of her guests has been a gift, hard work, but nonetheless a gift that we appreciate.
As I have told the story of the house before, she was built in the late 1800’s as an inn and then home to two other families that had such love and vision for her. Under their stewardship, the house grew and became this home where their families gathered and memories were made.
This last year when we were decorating for our Christmas guests, I found a picture on George Anderson’s desk in the library from 1937. As the library and its amazing collection of books seems to be a guest favorite, I am assuming someone found it and left for me. It is another example of an unexpected gift from the house…not only does it show the evolution of house, but it also lets me connect with one of The Ladies who lived there once upon a time.
We are so proud to be the next custodians of this insanely special property and am so proud of all of us involved in making her come alive again and as I have said before it’s been a village of people. Grateful for everyone.
As we approach our summer season 2024, I am so excited to share that we are pretty much booked and evenly split with recurring guests and new families wanting to spend a week perched high above the CHQ Lake and The Institution making their family memories! Thank you for sharing your vacations and/or weddings with us; it’s a privilege. Looking forward to welcoming you all!
OMG! Thanksgiving is around the corner, and it is not lost on me, as I sit down with my glass of wine to write this blog, that time has flown bye. Originally, this was supposed to be a love letter to The Summer Brides of The Manor, but alas, my best laid plans were derailed by many unexpected happenings…so, this blog is a love letter to feeling blessed by all the wonderful people that crossed the threshold of our properties on Potter Road this year.
Firstly, I would like to shout out to all of our guests of 2021. It has been a pleasure and privilege to share The Manor with you and we look forward to welcoming you back anytime!
I also want to extend a special acknowledgement to the members of the Wadsworth family. The Wadsworths were the previous owners of the property, and they sought me out in August 2020, shortly after we hosted our first guests, to book 4th of July 2021 week so they could re-capture their family tradition of gathering at The Manor as they had for more than 20 years.
At the beginning of the year, I don’t think anyone knew what 2021 was going to look like because COVID-19 changed the landscape of how we live. I am personally grateful for everyone who chose to make The Manor part of their story. It has been a revolving door of amazing guests from “friendcations”, staycations, and family reunions, not to mention the return of weddings!
I was so fortunate that in the early summer of 2020, our lake house neighbors (Diane & Jeff…who I didn’t actually know at the time) contacted me about renting that house for their daughter’s June 2021 wedding guests. I was thrilled to be asked, but unfortunately, their dates weren’t available. In one breath, I had to decline, and in the next I said, “we do have this other house that might work…it’s just not finished yet”.
Their accommodation booking became the beginning of our wedding events; it also started a beautiful friendship. While Diane’s daughter actually got married at The Chautauqua Institution, the Chautauqua Heights Manor estate was host to the wedding party, a 100-person welcome BBQ and many intimate events during their five-day stay; such as a bridal party brunch, champagne, hair & make-up sessions, and the wedding after party.
I cannot tell you how it warms my heart to see this home come to life again and be the center of its guests’ memories and story. As an interior designer, I see in full pictures and stories, which is either a curse or a blessing depending on who you ask in my life…especially my husband, who has to make it come true. During the renovation, I often day-dreamed of what the house looked and felt like over the last century with its occupants, and have concluded, the spirit of this house is transcending time.
Speaking of stories, all of our brides have been beyond warm and stunning and each one had a different story to tell. Our cottage saw a June bride, who was an area local, that just needed to have little place for her bridal party to gather, stay, and get ready for her big day. So happy our quiet secluded setting could provide that for her and her family.
Labor Day Weekend was the first full scale, 100-person, white tent wedding that hosted thirty family/friends in residence, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding and reception. Our bride, Maddie, was actually our second wedding booking, which she did right after the Christmas. God Bless her, she trekked up when we had at least 10-feet of snow and the house was in the tear down stage of last year’s Christmas décor. Honestly, it was a mess! Fast forward to September, The Manor was transformed into an elegant wedding venue. Maddie translated her wedding vision while embracing the eccentric vibe of The Manor to perfection with the help of exceptional wedding vendors (some of whom you can find right here on our site).
Our last September bride was Hannah, who is an extremely talented dressmaker from Rochester, NY. Hannah and Glenn (a French trained chef) threw an intimate wedding for family and a few close friends. They truly made The Manor the “backyard” wedding of their dreams.
As we closed out September with the weddings, we saw October blossom with weekend guests who wanted to hike, see the turning leaves, explore the wineries, and enjoy all the other fun fall happenings in Western New York. October was also the return of my favorite guest EVER, Ms. Marissa and family. Marissa’s 4-day jaunt was her third stay this year; her affection for The Manor inspires me every time she stays by re-seeing it through her eyes. Her eloquent words of their time spent with us pushes me to expand and rethink The Manor’s story and hopefully, translate it in the ever-evolving design.
It’s our guests and their stories that entice us to keep sharing The Manor. Seeing the photos shared from all of our brides and guests has been a privilege and true a pleasure. And on that note, I am happy to announce we are 90% booked for Summer 2022, and we have started booking 2023 summer and weddings. Not in my wildest dreams did I think I would be writing that to you a week before Thanksgiving!
Thank you and Happy Holidays from our family to yours!
I can’t believe we were still taking down Christmas décor here at The Manor in the third week of January 2021. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, as we started putting it up the day after Halloween 2020.
Since this is my first blog for The Manor, I guess I should start by telling you a few things about myself. First and foremost, I am a perfectionist who loves design. To me, good design should tell a story; I see myself as a storyteller, not a designer. I also LOVE old houses – the older the better. The more history the house has, the more I am drawn to it.
This is, of course, much to my husband’s dismay, as he has to renovate them with me, and living through my process of discovering a home’s story through my eyes can be long (and sometimes painful.) With that all being said, the renovation of Chautauqua Heights Manor was an exhausting, but amazing, ride that makes all of us so proud. It truly takes a village to do a renovation of this size. SPOILER ALERT: it couldn’t have been on HGTV, and I am fairly sure it would have been too edgy for BRAVO.
Our journey at CHM started like most of our other renovations do: with Bill and I sitting in bed on a Sunday morning, drinking coffee, glued to our phones, surfing “real estate porn” (or as normal people call it, ZILLOW.) It was a snowy day in late February 2019, and we were supposed to be looking for a lakefront house to add to our Airbnb portfolio, and then Bill found her. I want to tell you “she had me at hello”, but truthfully, I thought my husband would divorce me due to the sheer size and age of the house.
God bless my husband. He encouraged me to go see the property (something I am quite sure he wishes he had not done 😂.) By June 2019, we had closed on The Manor property. After the many, many challenges that come with this kind of renovation (not to mention the fights, blood, sweat and tears), we felt we had renovated her enough (89%) by July 2020 to open. Of course, as we know, that turned out to be in the middle of COVID-19. 🤦♀️ At that point, I honestly had no idea if we’d “bet the farm” (so to speak) on telling the story of this 148 year old home, because our initial business model was shot to hell by the devastation the pandemic caused on everyone’s way of life.
As I look back on 2020 and into 2021, here are a few of my takeaways from the pandemic and the year in general.
Firstly, I am hopeful for what is ahead of us. I am so grateful that we were able to stay the course to finish The Manor renovation when the pandemic hit in early 2020. The guests who have come to stay and share their family moments and make memories with us already have made all of the late nights and early mornings worth it.
When we started this restoration, I never could have expected that our first guests would be two BFF families seeking a way to have a “new normal” holiday. They came to see the property while it was basically still under construction (weeks before I was ready to reveal our very-much-still-work-in-progress project to the outside world 😳), and they still ended up renting The Manor for the whole month of July. I’m thankful for them, and to all guests looking to find a safe way to social distance together who have been staying with us constantly since then.
Which brings me back to where I started – Christmas decorations! I LOVE CHRISTMAS DÉCOR (it’s a sickness; according to my mother, I need a meeting). This year held extra meaning, not only because it was our first Christmas decorating The Manor, but because our “Christmas Family” this year was The Manor’s first ever booking! The family had rented another one of our historic Airbnb’s in nearby Westfield, NY over Christmas 2019. They needed a bigger space for Christmas 2020, so I suggested our new house, Chautauqua Heights Manor, that was under renovation. As you can see from the pictures, they had a magical holiday in a house that afforded them a space to gather with the appropriate social distancing they needed to stay safe!
Follow along here on our blog (or over on Facebook & Instagram!) as we tell the “behind the scenes” stories of Chautauqua Heights Manor. Next blog I’ll tell you all about The Manor’s design story!
