The year 2009 was a big year for the Oakwood Inn Bed & Breakfast of Raleigh, North Carolina. On June 2, 2009 the Inn celebrated its 25th year anniversary operating as a bed and breakfast. It was a proud day for Gary and Doris Jurkiewicz who are the current owners/innkeepers. Also on September 1, 2009, Doris and Gary Jurkiewicz celebrated eight years at being innkeepers of Raleigh’s first B & B. They are also the innkeepers with the longest tenure at the Inn. Prior to Doris and Gary all the other innkeepers averaged about 4 years and there were 4 sets of different innkeepers prior to them.
What made them hang on the longest? “A variety of reasons,” says Gary. “We purchased the Inn on September 1, 2001. Ten days later we got hit with 9/11. That was a real shocker. Occupancy tumbled. Soon afterwards, our weekends were basically full, but we lost all of our weekday business which happens to be corporate travelers.” Gary and Doris hung on for about six months, and then Gary went to work part-time as a relief pharmacist. He did that a couple of years for the extra money and health insurance, until things came back to reasonable occupancy levels.
“It never came back to what the previous owners supposedly had, but enough for us to see the potential in this place,“ says Doris. “I’ve always believed in the Inn and Raleigh as a very positive thing that has come across in our lives. We have experienced ups and downs, but overall I wouldn’t trade where we are in our lives with anything else.”
Over the next couple of years, the Inn’s business increased until the economic crisis hit Raleigh in 2008. In September of that year, the Inn hit bottom. The Oakwood Inn along with every other business saw its numbers fall to levels much lower than after 9/11. “After 9/11 people were afraid to travel but had the money and means,” Gary recalls, “but this new economic crisis had people looking at their retirement plans and wondering how to pay for vacations and travel.”
Doris is confident about Raleigh bouncing back. “We have all ready seen a huge upswing in our occupancy since March 2010,” she says, “and it’s still going fairly strong.” “It’s a shame that the economy collapsed in 2008, because 2009 was the 25th year anniversary of the Inn and we were hoping for a banner year. Even though the numbers were down for 2009, we had a wonderful, uplifting moment in May.”
On May 28, 2009 a memorable reunion was held at the Oakwood Inn Bed & Breakfast between the original first guests of the inn and the original Innkeepers from 25 years ago. Paul and Jean Higgins were the first guests that stayed at the Inn when it first opened on June 2, 1984. They were driving down from Virginia to see the son at Fort Bragg and stopped at a visitor center just into the North Carolina border. They asked the visitor center staff if there were any B & Bs in Raleigh. They told them that they just received information that one just opened that weekend. Paul and Jean continued on to Raleigh and registered as the first guests at the Inn.
“There must be a lucky aura about the house,” Gary said. “On the 25 of May 2009, I received a call.” The caller wanted a room for May 28. “Not a problem,” Gary replied. And then the conversation became intriguing.
“Well, we’d like a room on the second floor, however, is the Polk room available.”
“Yes, it is,” Gary replied.
“That is the one my husband and I stayed in 25 years ago. We were the first guests that stayed at the Inn.”
Yeah, right, Gary thought. Skeptical… you bet! “Oh really, and when was that?”
“June second, I believe, it was the first weekend of June.”
This is a possibility, Gary thought to himself. He had an article that was printed in the Raleigh Times May 29, 1984 edition which talked about the Grand Opening of the Oakwood Inn Bed and Breakfast which also provided some information about the first guests that would be staying at the Inn that opening day in June. He asked a few more questions, and decided that Jean and Paul, must be the original guests. Gary then promptly called four of the original five innkeepers who still live in Raleigh. He asked if they could come to the inn on Thursday and have a little reunion; three of them agreed to come.
The Innkeepers in 1984 were Oakley and Donna Herring, Chris Yetter and Steve Zamparelli, and Donna’s mother, Olive Colman. Back on that momentous June day, Oakley and Donna were there to greet the couple at the Oakwood Inn B & B.
“They were standing on the porch waiting for us to arrive back then,” Jean Higgins recalled.
Twenty five years later on May 28, 2009, Chris Yetter, Oakley and Donna Herring again welcomed Paul and Jean to the Oakwood Inn, along with the current innkeeper Doris Jurkiewicz. As soon as they all saw each other, they recognized each other, and June 2, 1984 was reborn once again. Hand shakes and warm greetings were exchanged. Doris learned how Donna made dinner and asked for Paul and Jean to join her and Oakley. Later, Doris took everyone on a tour of the Inn which again had Innkeepers sharing stories from back when the Inn first opened. After an hour or so of reminiscing, Paul opened a bottle of champagne which he brought to celebrate the occasion.
In 1985 Chris Yetter began soliciting potential members to form a North Carolina Bed & Breakfast Association which organized in 1986 with Chris Yetter as its first president and the Oakwood Inn was one of thirty charter inns of the association. Oakley said that after they sold the inn in 1987, he didn’t think the new owners would be able to make it work. Business was bad and the Inn not profitable. The Inn changed hands three more times before being sold to Doris and Gary Jurkiewicz in September 2001.
When you realize that many B & Bs are just people’s homes that are rented out to strangers, and many innkeepers just seem to handle the pressure for about 4-7 years. Many B & Bs, close down or return back to personal residences after a short run. Those that run longer maybe go about 10-15.
“For a bed and breakfast to stay in business this long is quite an accomplishment. Innkeeping can be a tough, yet rewarding business. The folks who have been running The Oakwood Inn must be doing it right, obviously having been rewarded by a constant flow of loyal customers for a quarter-century,” said Jay Karen, President & CEO of Professional Association of Innkeepers International.
The Oakwood Inn has made it this far. Hopefully it will go on to see its 50th golden anniversary. Doris and Gary hope they will be there to see that accomplishment and doubt will be the innkeepers, but they’ll have the glowing pride that Chris, Donna, and Oakley had on May 28, 2009.
