We were lucky to catch up with Norris and Luanna Cole recently and have shared our conversation below.

Norris and Luanna, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Being business owners wasn’t anything new to us. We had been business owners since we were a young married couple. Owning lots of different business that had no shared interest except treating people fairly, kindly and having a business that people needed and most of all wanted. We were transitioning from our last business which was a wedding business called The Plantation House. This business operated for 20 years and right at 1000 weddings. When we made the decision to not take any more bookings and come to the last wedding in 2017 we were both wondering what our next venture would be. One of our thoughts was to sale and go retire some where quite and quaint and less stress, etc.., So we started a process of looking at options. You see this house is so much more than walls and mortar…. This house tells stories. We raised our children here, the many footprints that have been brought into this house are more than we can count. Our heartstrings were pulled in so many different directions.
One night as we were laying in this big ole house with no one in it but ourselves and the quite….My husband turned to me and said “ How about a “Bed and Breakfast”? You see many years ago before trendy quirky motels became a thing.. my husband wanted to purchase a motel off the interstate. I would change the sheets and clean the potties and he would be the “man in the cage” at the front desk.. haha ! I would shut that idea down every time lol. But this time was different…. I turned to him and said YES.. let’s do it! This is how The Plantation House Boutique Inn began! We began it on a prayer and haven’t looked back. This business is so much more than a bed and a breakfast… it is meeting such unique individuals that enter as strangers and leave as family. We wake up everyday with a beautiful purpose. Hospitality is very much something we have always had in our lives and now we get to treat people how we want to be treated! We feel like the Inn is needed and very much wanted….and that’s a win win!

Norris and Luanna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We been happily married for 41 yrs. We have 3 lovely adult children, 2 awesome son in laws and 4 beautiful and talented grandchildren. We are natives of the Texas panhandle. and have lived in the Austin area for 38 yrs. We both come from entrepreneurial families. Hard work and business sense have always been apart of our lives. For some reason neither one of us have ever been afraid to trying something new, especially when were younger lol. When this idea came to start a BnB.. we did research first. We needed to find out how to get people to us. We search out a reservation management company that’s located in Utah. They are integrated with all the OTA , such as Expedia, Booking.com, etc. Then we versed ourselves into making our Inn special. We didn’t copy any other BnB or small Inn, we just made it ours. We wanted it trendy but classic and traditional all rolled up in one. We wanted to be a place where guests would come back to. We knew if we could get return guests , then we were doing what they needed and wanted ! We did extensive remodeling in the kitchen ( which guests get to see their breakfast being made.. and have conversations with a Luey and Norris ) we wanted comfy comforts of home for our guests. So each room has a unique but similar aesthetic. They have amazing beds and beautiful bedding. We also wanted to not nickel and dime guests…. Amenities are extensive and well appointed. Homemade cookies in rooms, banana bread ( a hit to guests) Nespresso coffee station, other snacks, fresh fruit, custom- curated frangrance exclusively blended just for our Inn.. candles, lotions, body scrubs, diffusers, linen /room mists custom mugs and logo waffle weaved robes, These are items that can be tried first in guests rooms , but can be purchased to bring them back to The Plantation House each time the use. We have tried to carefully think what would make our guests feel special and give them warm fuzzy feels.. and we hope and strive to achieve that. Oh and our logo is the same from our wedding days, so it’s very recognized for last 26 yrs. The day to day operations are not sourced out. We are truly a home based business and do everything ourselves. Norris does all the landscape and yard work ( 5 acres) Luey does all the cooking and the flower pots , but we both do room turnovers and laundry and all the other things required of running a small Inn… too many too many share:)We are most proud of the fact that we work so well together. We laugh and enjoy our time working side by side. We are problem solvers and aren’t afraid to work hard. We are very different personalities however, Norris is very quite but is very interesting and Luey talks your ear off.. she can’t change and probably won’t change..lol.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

We started The Plantation House Boutique Inn and started receiving guests in Jan. 2019. It started off with gang busters. We were averaging a very high occupancy just like the Austin Hotels were averaging. Of course, we are a much smaller scale but never less very busy. Then COVID hit. March 13th 2020….we had guests from New York, Chicago, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and San Antonio. We were hosting guests from all over the world and was on a roll and then nothing. We had around 50 cancellations in 3 days. It was super grim and full of discouragement. For 6 weeks we felt desperate, just like so many business owners and operators felt. We truly didn’t know what the outcome would be for our business much less our health. Lots of angsts and uncertainties. Being in Texas we were able to open back up May 1st. We no longer had guests from a far, but guests that were local , our neighbors down the street, guest from all over Texas.. if they could drive… they came. We were extremely busy during that time mainly because we were small, and had proper separation and they felt safe. We always said we cleaned like the guests had a virus.. (so not much changed there.. just masks) We were a place that brought people a lot of peace during a strained time in our world’s history. We were very grateful that our Inn could operate within the guidelines, but also could give normalcy to those who needed to feel normal without compromising safety. We are happy that those confused times are settling down and grateful for not folding.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

We value reviews. Every guests that choose to stay at our Inn we give 100%. We really don’t know who will be entering our place because they usually book off our site or from an online travel site. These are usually new faces. So our goal is to make their experience at our Inn a memorable one. We want them to remember our location, the way they slept, the food they ate, the scents they enjoyed, the conversations they had, the smiles that greeted them. Bottom line we treated them how we wanted to be treated… pretty simple actually. By doing this, we hope they will review their stay with stellar reviews! We want to be 5 stars only! Now our return guests, that is the biggest compliment to us is having them return, do we offer if they book off our site 10% discount. These are great incentives for them too.
With each booking our guests get a nice personalized welcome letter with their confirmation as well as a “ thank you” letter after their stay. These are special touches for our guests .
We also send curtesy text on the day before their arrival to welcome them personally and find out needed information to help their stay to go effortlessly. Theses have been very positive ways of communicating and when they enter our doors, they already feel they know us.
Those reviews really help us to be notice on all marketing levels! ( Norris only excepts 5 stars lol)!

Contact Info:

• Website: Plantationhouse.us
• Instagram: Plantationhouseboutiqueinn
• Facebook: Plantationhouse

Image Credits
Cover pic.. 1st one Adriana Gage Photography