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So long, commute; hello, life
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Guests at Abigail's Inn use it as a base for exploring Camden, Maine's, lovely harbor location. Innkeepers Kipp Wright and Beth O'Connor help guide their travels.
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Spotsylvania County native Beth O'Connor has created the good life with her husband, Kipp Wright, and their baby son, Colin, 1.
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Kipp Wright and Beth O'Connor's hunt for the perfect B&B led to Abigail's Inn in Camden, Maine.
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Most 9-to-5ers have daydreamed about chucking office life to do what we love.
Date published: 4/8/2007
By KIM BAER
It was at the vineyard that they heard the story that changed their lives.
In April 2004, Kipp Wright and Beth O'Connor seemingly had it all.
The newly married couple had the jobs: Wright as IT director for usatoday.com and O'Connor as an event planner for the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
They had the money: Wright made six figures, O'Connor made well into the five figures.
They had the fancy condo: in Rosslyn, walking distance to Georgetown.
But something was missing. Each worked 60 to 80 hours a week. On their rare vacations, Wright brought his laptop and BlackBerry.
On event nights, O'Connor was at work from 8 a.m. to midnight. Her work often spilled into the weekends.
"I started to realize that, hold on, my life is approximately two hours on a Saturday, if I'm lucky," O'Connor said.
On that day at the vineyard, they started chatting with a woman having a bachelorette party. She was receiving grapevines as presents.
Wright and O'Connor were intrigued.
Turns out, the woman and her fiance had bought a vineyard.
O'Connor had talked for years about running a bed-and-breakfast. She always figured it was something they would do "later," in retirement.
Not when she was 34.
But shortly after the vineyard visit, the couple began B&B shopping.
They visited inns along the East Coast. They decided to look at an inn in Maine, a side trip on their way to another inn on Cape Cod.
They thought the picturesque harbor town of Camden, Maine, was lovely.
Fredericksburg is a metropolis compared with the small town of 5,000, said O'Connor, who grew up in Spotsylvania County.
Then they saw Abigail's Inn and they were sold.
They loved the 19th-century Greek Revival house with its big Southern front porch.
The couple bought the four-guest-room inn in July and moved in that Labor Day weekend.
Friends and family were surprised, and a bit worried, about their sudden shift from yuppies to innkeepers.
"I think we all thought they had lost their minds," said O'Connor's sister, Meghan O'Connor, who lives in Fredericksburg.
But Beth has always had an adventurous spirit, her older sister said.
This was the girl, after all, who once took a job in Miami because she was tired of commuting from Fredericksburg to Washington.
She then switched careers, moving from retailing to event planning.
Her first job in that field required her to uproot for three months of the year to run events on Cape Cod.
Still, running a bed-and-breakfast was the biggest challenge by far.
They got 90 inches of snow that first winter. The pipes to one of the guest rooms burst.
"We were very naive about the cold temperatures and protecting pipes," O'Connor said.
They learned.
Wright, who was never a handyman, has become a master electrician and plumber.
Before, O'Connor didn't cook, unless it was pasta with red sauce.
| A day in the life of Beth O'Connor:
Then
6:00 a.m. Get up, shower, dress.
6:45 a.m. Walk dog around the concrete jungle that was our neighborhood.
7:00 a.m. Eat a yogurt. Run out the door.
7:10 a.m. Begin commute heading west on Interstate 66 toward the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center. Smooth sailing until Exit 69. Traffic at a standstill. Listen to NPR and daydream.
8:30 a.m. Get to work. Event day. Check on the caterer load-ins to make sure that equipment for the evening event is being placed in the correct location and being blocked off from the public.
Go to the office: Check voice mail, e-mail and maybe have conference call with the events office. Brief the speaker for the evening event. Site walk-through with potential event client. Put contract together for new client.
Noon: Quick lunch.
1 p.m. Next site walk-through.
2:30 p.m. All vendors arrive for the evening event. Setup begins. Make sure that setup is going accordingly. Work out last-minute parking details for evening event.
6 p.m. Event begins.
10 p.m. Event ends. Stay until vendor breakdown is well under way.
11:30 p.m. Depart museum.
Midnight: Home.
Now
6:30 a.m. Wake up, shower, dress, get son Colin, walk down stairs to begin work.
7:15 a.m. Walk dog down to the beautiful harbor.
7:20 a.m. Kipp puts on coffee and tea, cuts fruit and preps main breakfast course.
7:30 a.m. Set tables, turn on lights and feed Colin.
8:30 a.m. Guests arrive for breakfast. Get juice orders, pour coffee and serve fruit starter.
8:40 a.m. Main course is served.
9:00 a.m. Help guests plan their day, provide trail maps for hikes in Camden Hills State Park, outline a lighthouse tour, recommend good places for lunch, schedule schooner sailings, make reservations for dinner, etc.
10:00 a.m. Guests are off to begin their day. Begin to clean rooms and bake treats for the afternoon.
12:30 p.m. Room cleaning complete. Time to enjoy some lunch in the side yard.
1:00 p.m. Put treats out for guests. Work on laundry, iron sheets.
2:00 p.m. Work in the yard.
3:00 p.m. Walk the dog and Colin. Kipp handles check-ins.
4:00 p.m. Sit and relax.
5:00 p.m. Start dinner.
6:00 p.m. Last minute check-ins.
7:00 p.m. Laundry finished, continue to iron sheets.
8:00 p.m. Chill out.
10:00 p.m. In bed.
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| Are you living your dream?
Have you found a way to live the life you dreamed of, doing what you love?
Tell us about it!
Please send responses to Kim Baer by e-mail to kbaer@freelancestar.com; by phone at 540/368-5028; or by snail mail to Kim Baer, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401. |
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Date published: 4/8/2007
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Star Directory
