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!