As we approach our first Christmas season in Mississippi, I’m finding myself with just a tinge of nostalgia for winter in the mountains. Well, maybe half a tinge. It’s warm down here; warm unlike any Christmas I’ve ever experienced. One thing you could count on in the mountains was snow and cold temperatures at Christmas; for that matter, you could count on snow and cold in July. While it will take some adjustment getting used to a sunny, 74 F day on the winter solstice, I’m confident that I’ll be able to deal with it in time.
One constant with Christmas and me, be it in Mississippi, Hot Sulphur Springs or Shawnee, KS, is the art of the feast. The menu has been unchanged for years – a standing rib roast on Christmas Eve, and Thanksgiving dinner redux on Christmas night. The standing rib roast recipe was handed down by my father, and all of the prime ribs made at The Riverside were prepared in this fashion. Prime Rib was our standard offering on all of our holiday and special event meals – New Years Eve, Valentine’s Day, wedding meals and large group dinners.
As this crust bakes and mingles with the marbled fat exterior of the roast, it takes on a life of its own, almost eclipsing the flavor and splendor of the smoky beef; kind of like finding cash inside of a gold nugget. By last count, I swear to God, we had eight, full bore, dining room conversions of vegans jumping ship as they rediscovered the wonders of carnivorousness. It brought tears to my eyes watching the color return to the cheeks, while smiles returned to the faces of these ill-humored, wan, sallow jicama junkies as they scarfed down these blood rare bits of roasted goodness, shouting “Amen Brother!” and “Hallelujah Sweet Jesus but this is tasty!” between mouthfuls.
Serves 8 (or 4 reformed vegans)
1 – 4 bone Prime Rib roast (6-7 pounds)
½ cup Dijon mustard
½ stick unsalted butter
6 cups non-seasoned bread crumbs
8 cloves finely minced garlic
1 cup finely shredded Parmigiano Reggiano
3-4 healthy sprigs of fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
½ cup Kosher salt
¼ cup freshly ground coarse pepper
Melt the butter in a saucepan and whisk together with the Dijon Mustard. Using a pastry brush, literally paint the exterior of the roast with the mixture until all is covered.
Mix all of the remaining ingredients in a large dish, and roll the coated roast in the mixture until all is covered. This can be done early in the day, storing the roast uncovered in the refrigerator. (The ‘store in the refrigerator’ part wasn’t necessary at The Riverside, as room temperature was typically in the low 40’s.)
Preheat oven to 475F. Put the roast on a V-shaped roasting rack (they sell these at Wal-Mart for 6 bucks) and put it in the oven for 20 minutes – this will sear and crunchify the crust.
Reduce the heat to 275F and slowly roast until the internal temperature hits 125F – that’s the high side of rare. Remove the roast, tent with foil and let rest for 30 minutes. The roast will still be cooking, and the internal temperature should get to 135F – medium rare – at the end of the resting period.
Slice, serve, stand back and watch, whilst even the most strident of the anti-red meat crowd quiver in anticipation, before caving and succumbing to that which must be enjoyed.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all the best for 2011!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Friday the 13th......The Final Chapter : Fin
Our two-year story of Living Life Riverside is a classic comic-tragedy; the last seven installments of this blog detailed the tragic side of the story. Yet, I reported this side of the story at the end of the ordeal, in retrospect, after the building burned down and all that was left was to sift through the ashes (metaphorically speaking). Truth be known, beyond the dread, the vomit and the immediate buyer’s remorse, my first experiences of The Riverside were filled with hope and excitement. If you were to go back and read this blog from the beginning, you’d find that I was reporting our life from a state of awe and wonderment; always at the ready for what great things awaited us – no hint in my writing or mood of despair or failure. While I knew at the start that this was going to be an uphill climb, with a potential quick slide into financial hell were we unable to reach the apex, I had no choice but to cheerfully continue that climb. I had terrific experiences with people that still bring tears to my eyes; once in a lifetime experiences that continually reminded us why we chucked it all to risk everything and do what we did. Those memories will always be there for me, and they will one day hopefully overwhelm the reality of the financial ugliness.
I’m often asked if I have regrets.
Knowing what I know now???
Hell yes!! I have regrets. There isn’t one thing about this experience I don’t regret. Daily! Hourly!
“Well”, people say, “you can check that off your bucket list.”
Dear God, if only I could do it over and have it eternally on my bucket list. The pain of wishing you could do it and not having done it has to be miniscule in comparison to the pain of having actually done it and having that experience bludgeon you to death.
I beg of you, please consult with me if owning a bar, restaurant or B&B is on your bucket list.
Many have lauded us for simply trying. While I truly appreciate the lauding, the folks at WalMart don’t yet accept lauds in lieu of cash when purchasing Cheetos and Little Debbie Nutty Bars. The truth be known, I wish I was being lauded for showing restraint and sticking with the dull but ‘sure thing’ corporate gig. While I wouldn’t have the memories of charming Hot Sulphur Springs, $750/month water bills and all of the wonderful people we met the past two years (“Yuk! Clean it up!”, “Dog attack at the Riverside!”), I would instead have memories of fabulous meals in Paris, quaffing fine wines in Verona and most importantly, memories of quarterly meetings with my financial advisor.
But alas, I opted for that bucket list thing. And I blame nothing, or no one, but myself.
I do know that we bought an old hotel, an icon in the area and an important slice of history in Grand County, and for two years, we made it a warm and shining place in a cold, desolate outpost. We welcomed strangers who left as friends. We entertained guests from all over the world who hugged us as family when they departed. I truly believe that we brought new life to a dying town and county, if only for a short while.
While there were many wonderful guests and moments, there was a particular guest and moment that still makes me think that our adventure wasn’t a total failure. A delightful German couple stopped in one summer afternoon looking for a room for the evening; they ended up staying with us for four nights. The husband played first chair French horn with the Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra - a gentle man of class, culture and great elegance; he’d traveled throughout the world as a professional musician, and was in the midst of a month long ramble throughout the United States as a prelude to a two year resident teaching position in China. During their last evening with us, while dining in the restaurant, I stopped by the table to ask about their dinner. The man’s eyes were closed and his hands were clasped, as if he was praying, but the meal was over. He looked up at me and said “Everything is perfect. The beer and the food were wonderful, this room is wonderful, and you are playing Schumann’s Fourth Symphony. I can’t believe I am here in this place listening to Schumann. This is Allesklarbeidir. I know you’re not familiar with that word, but it is a German word that is even hard for me to explain the meaning, because I don’t know of the English word that exists to describe the meaning of the word, but I will try. I think a literal translation in English is the word ‘adore’, but you would never use this word to say you adore something in the German language, as it goes far beyond adoring something. And this is not a word that is used lightly, as very seldom do you experience the feeling of Allesklarbeidir. It describes an internal feeling that you have of total comfort and wellness, a feeling you have when you are wholly in love and at peace with all of your surroundings. It is a warm feeling, a feeling of quiet joy. I have that feeling, now, in this place of yours’.”
At that moment, the feeling was mutual.
...................................................
After I assume room temperature and should my life ever be examined by someone other than creditors, I’m hoping that it will be discussed by close friends at a nice bar; one that pours a good drink, as we did at The Riverside. I’m certain that after the cussing and discussing, all will agree that if I did nothing else, my greatest accomplishment in this life was that my follies were occasionally capable of inducing a feeling of Allesklarbeidir and my failures did well to serve as a warning to others.
I am at peace with my fuck-up.
It ain’t cancer.
May God continue to bless us all……
I’m often asked if I have regrets.
Knowing what I know now???
Hell yes!! I have regrets. There isn’t one thing about this experience I don’t regret. Daily! Hourly!
“Well”, people say, “you can check that off your bucket list.”
Dear God, if only I could do it over and have it eternally on my bucket list. The pain of wishing you could do it and not having done it has to be miniscule in comparison to the pain of having actually done it and having that experience bludgeon you to death.
I beg of you, please consult with me if owning a bar, restaurant or B&B is on your bucket list.
Many have lauded us for simply trying. While I truly appreciate the lauding, the folks at WalMart don’t yet accept lauds in lieu of cash when purchasing Cheetos and Little Debbie Nutty Bars. The truth be known, I wish I was being lauded for showing restraint and sticking with the dull but ‘sure thing’ corporate gig. While I wouldn’t have the memories of charming Hot Sulphur Springs, $750/month water bills and all of the wonderful people we met the past two years (“Yuk! Clean it up!”, “Dog attack at the Riverside!”), I would instead have memories of fabulous meals in Paris, quaffing fine wines in Verona and most importantly, memories of quarterly meetings with my financial advisor.
But alas, I opted for that bucket list thing. And I blame nothing, or no one, but myself.
I do know that we bought an old hotel, an icon in the area and an important slice of history in Grand County, and for two years, we made it a warm and shining place in a cold, desolate outpost. We welcomed strangers who left as friends. We entertained guests from all over the world who hugged us as family when they departed. I truly believe that we brought new life to a dying town and county, if only for a short while.
While there were many wonderful guests and moments, there was a particular guest and moment that still makes me think that our adventure wasn’t a total failure. A delightful German couple stopped in one summer afternoon looking for a room for the evening; they ended up staying with us for four nights. The husband played first chair French horn with the Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra - a gentle man of class, culture and great elegance; he’d traveled throughout the world as a professional musician, and was in the midst of a month long ramble throughout the United States as a prelude to a two year resident teaching position in China. During their last evening with us, while dining in the restaurant, I stopped by the table to ask about their dinner. The man’s eyes were closed and his hands were clasped, as if he was praying, but the meal was over. He looked up at me and said “Everything is perfect. The beer and the food were wonderful, this room is wonderful, and you are playing Schumann’s Fourth Symphony. I can’t believe I am here in this place listening to Schumann. This is Allesklarbeidir. I know you’re not familiar with that word, but it is a German word that is even hard for me to explain the meaning, because I don’t know of the English word that exists to describe the meaning of the word, but I will try. I think a literal translation in English is the word ‘adore’, but you would never use this word to say you adore something in the German language, as it goes far beyond adoring something. And this is not a word that is used lightly, as very seldom do you experience the feeling of Allesklarbeidir. It describes an internal feeling that you have of total comfort and wellness, a feeling you have when you are wholly in love and at peace with all of your surroundings. It is a warm feeling, a feeling of quiet joy. I have that feeling, now, in this place of yours’.”
At that moment, the feeling was mutual.
...................................................
After I assume room temperature and should my life ever be examined by someone other than creditors, I’m hoping that it will be discussed by close friends at a nice bar; one that pours a good drink, as we did at The Riverside. I’m certain that after the cussing and discussing, all will agree that if I did nothing else, my greatest accomplishment in this life was that my follies were occasionally capable of inducing a feeling of Allesklarbeidir and my failures did well to serve as a warning to others.
I am at peace with my fuck-up.
It ain’t cancer.
May God continue to bless us all……
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Friday the 13th...The Final Chapter / Part VII
Note: I'll apologize in advance for the F-bomb contained in the following entry. But really, there is no other applicable word.
The auction was held as scheduled and after numerous unanswered emails and phone calls, two weeks later I finally made contact with the auctioneer, who reported that the sale of the kitchen equipment (which we didn’t own) and the beds and remaining few personal items that we did own, netted us around $5000. He then asked where I would like the proceeds mailed, and said he’d get me a check. That was three months ago, and as of this writing, I’ve not received a penny.
Many of you might find it hard to believe that someone would, essentially, steal (auction) your belongings in broad daylight as you stand by and watch and then thumb their nose at you when reproached. It used to be hard for me to fathom the notion that people can be so blatantly dishonest, but my Colorado experience has shown me that no matter how solid, legal and on the up-and-up people and professions may appear, the reality is that thieves, cheats, liars and crooks can mask themselves with legitimate facades and walk and operate openly among us, and more often than not, with total impunity. Certainly I’m not inferring that this sort of behavior is peculiar to Colorado; it just happened to be in Colorado that I put myself in such a position of vulnerability as to be exposed to the predators that are licensed to prey and kill, and then next, be fodder to the vultures who feast upon the remains. Needless to say, this newly found knowledge and experience has hardened me a tad, as it is no longer elementary to my nature to give people the benefit of the doubt; ‘tis indeed a shame.
Friday, August 13th, 2010, 10:00 AM MST came and went without a whisper. It was the day after my 54th birthday, and a normal day at the office for me in Jackson, MS. I didn’t mark the minute, or even recognize until an hour later when it dawned on me that the foreclosure had occurred; no tremor in the force such as Obi-Wan Kenobi felt when Alderaan blew up. It just came and went; I didn’t feel sad, happy, relieved, depressed, jubilant or defeated, broker or richer. I think the fact that I’d been physically removed from The Riverside and Grand County for so long helped to ease the suffering, and it shook me to imagine the suffering I would have endured had I no place else to go, having had to stand my ground in Colorado and bear witness to the process to which I’d just been subjected. It was also important for our general health and well being that we so resolutely decided back in March to walk away from the venture, to quickly shed the pain of the struggle, the failure and the loss, and begin life anew in another locale. As someone on Madison Avenue so succinctly put it, “know when to say when”; I strongly suggest to one and all, when the opportunity/need arises, take heed in those words.
It’s easy to be philosophical and wax poetic about the laws of physics after you’ve been run over by a truck and survived. I can look back now and see with clarity the red flags that prior were obfuscated by my desire to live, what I thought at the time was, my dream job in my dream locale. The truth of the matter is that the night we signed the papers to purchase the hotel, December 27th, 2007, I had such an immediate, overwhelming feeling of dread and remorse that I literally became physically ill. My first night sleeping in the hotel and the new life that we’d just mortgaged our souls to obtain, I awoke at 3 or 4 in the morning with a high fever, bone-rattling chills and a bout of overwhelming nausea. Perhaps a nasty dose of altitude sickness for this unsuspecting heretofore flatlander? I think not, rather, a severe physical reaction to the notion that I’d just done something fatally stupid and irresponsible.
For a fact, the body’s natural defenses to illness can quickly break down when exposed to a severe stress, becoming impotent to the onslaught of a phantom virus seeking harbor in a fertile port which lacks the will or resistance to send it packing. If stress was luck, I had a boatload of it that night, enough so that there wasn’t a lottery that was safe from me the night of December 27th had I a free dollar left to play, and to wit, that transient virus found solid purchase upon my stressed-ridden body.
I made it through that miserable night, but midway through the next morning, I walked out of the hotel into a frigid day, a bright sun in an emerald sky and headed west down Grand Street, to stagger across the bridge over the Colorado River and walk through waist-deep snow on to the isolated western riverbank until I was out of sight and sound of the hotel and any human who might be wandering by, and I vomited from the very depths of my person, profoundly, loudly and violently.
As I trudged back to the hotel through the waist-deep snow and bitter cold that I realized was not just a winter vacation accoutrement but now a part of my day to day existence, the gut-wrenching nausea was gone, but the feeling of dread persisted. As forcefully as I had expunged the bug that had so quickly invaded me and rendered me a staggering, vomiting slug, I knew that the real source of my heartburn was yet eternal within me, both physically and mentally. Once back at the hotel, a hard look at the man in the mirror and a subsequent discussion with same found that we were both in agreement; buddy, you fucked up bad: HUGE – BIG TIME.
This was within 24 hours of our ownership of The Riverside Hotel. Talk about your classic case of buyer’s remorse.
To be concluded.......
The auction was held as scheduled and after numerous unanswered emails and phone calls, two weeks later I finally made contact with the auctioneer, who reported that the sale of the kitchen equipment (which we didn’t own) and the beds and remaining few personal items that we did own, netted us around $5000. He then asked where I would like the proceeds mailed, and said he’d get me a check. That was three months ago, and as of this writing, I’ve not received a penny.
Many of you might find it hard to believe that someone would, essentially, steal (auction) your belongings in broad daylight as you stand by and watch and then thumb their nose at you when reproached. It used to be hard for me to fathom the notion that people can be so blatantly dishonest, but my Colorado experience has shown me that no matter how solid, legal and on the up-and-up people and professions may appear, the reality is that thieves, cheats, liars and crooks can mask themselves with legitimate facades and walk and operate openly among us, and more often than not, with total impunity. Certainly I’m not inferring that this sort of behavior is peculiar to Colorado; it just happened to be in Colorado that I put myself in such a position of vulnerability as to be exposed to the predators that are licensed to prey and kill, and then next, be fodder to the vultures who feast upon the remains. Needless to say, this newly found knowledge and experience has hardened me a tad, as it is no longer elementary to my nature to give people the benefit of the doubt; ‘tis indeed a shame.
Friday, August 13th, 2010, 10:00 AM MST came and went without a whisper. It was the day after my 54th birthday, and a normal day at the office for me in Jackson, MS. I didn’t mark the minute, or even recognize until an hour later when it dawned on me that the foreclosure had occurred; no tremor in the force such as Obi-Wan Kenobi felt when Alderaan blew up. It just came and went; I didn’t feel sad, happy, relieved, depressed, jubilant or defeated, broker or richer. I think the fact that I’d been physically removed from The Riverside and Grand County for so long helped to ease the suffering, and it shook me to imagine the suffering I would have endured had I no place else to go, having had to stand my ground in Colorado and bear witness to the process to which I’d just been subjected. It was also important for our general health and well being that we so resolutely decided back in March to walk away from the venture, to quickly shed the pain of the struggle, the failure and the loss, and begin life anew in another locale. As someone on Madison Avenue so succinctly put it, “know when to say when”; I strongly suggest to one and all, when the opportunity/need arises, take heed in those words.
It’s easy to be philosophical and wax poetic about the laws of physics after you’ve been run over by a truck and survived. I can look back now and see with clarity the red flags that prior were obfuscated by my desire to live, what I thought at the time was, my dream job in my dream locale. The truth of the matter is that the night we signed the papers to purchase the hotel, December 27th, 2007, I had such an immediate, overwhelming feeling of dread and remorse that I literally became physically ill. My first night sleeping in the hotel and the new life that we’d just mortgaged our souls to obtain, I awoke at 3 or 4 in the morning with a high fever, bone-rattling chills and a bout of overwhelming nausea. Perhaps a nasty dose of altitude sickness for this unsuspecting heretofore flatlander? I think not, rather, a severe physical reaction to the notion that I’d just done something fatally stupid and irresponsible.
For a fact, the body’s natural defenses to illness can quickly break down when exposed to a severe stress, becoming impotent to the onslaught of a phantom virus seeking harbor in a fertile port which lacks the will or resistance to send it packing. If stress was luck, I had a boatload of it that night, enough so that there wasn’t a lottery that was safe from me the night of December 27th had I a free dollar left to play, and to wit, that transient virus found solid purchase upon my stressed-ridden body.
I made it through that miserable night, but midway through the next morning, I walked out of the hotel into a frigid day, a bright sun in an emerald sky and headed west down Grand Street, to stagger across the bridge over the Colorado River and walk through waist-deep snow on to the isolated western riverbank until I was out of sight and sound of the hotel and any human who might be wandering by, and I vomited from the very depths of my person, profoundly, loudly and violently.
As I trudged back to the hotel through the waist-deep snow and bitter cold that I realized was not just a winter vacation accoutrement but now a part of my day to day existence, the gut-wrenching nausea was gone, but the feeling of dread persisted. As forcefully as I had expunged the bug that had so quickly invaded me and rendered me a staggering, vomiting slug, I knew that the real source of my heartburn was yet eternal within me, both physically and mentally. Once back at the hotel, a hard look at the man in the mirror and a subsequent discussion with same found that we were both in agreement; buddy, you fucked up bad: HUGE – BIG TIME.
This was within 24 hours of our ownership of The Riverside Hotel. Talk about your classic case of buyer’s remorse.
To be concluded.......
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Friday the 13th......The Final Chapter/Part VI
No sooner had the auction been advertised throughout Grand County and on the auctioneers website, than the emails from the bank & the SBA’s attorneys started flying – not directly to me of course, but to my designated $300/hr legal counsel. The auction was advertised as a ‘Foreclosure Sale’, giving the public the opportunity to snatch up countless bargains on priceless antiques; antiques that were advertised as having had inhabited The Riverside since the turn of the century. There were pictures of 30+ pieces of dressers, armoires, tables, chairs, ornate clocks, beautiful wooden bed frames, and so on; both of the attorneys claimed that all of these pieces were part of the property, germane to the operation of the business and needed to remain at The Riverside. There was also the SBA’s assertion that due to provisions in our loan, they had a security interest the items; they were in fact encumbered. And as for that Brunswick Bar, it took less than 24 hours after hearing from Billy Banker “it’s theirs if they can haul it out of there” for someone at Grand County Bank to wise him up on the value of the bar, at which point he, uh, reneged on his generous offer. I imagine the real scenario involved one of the cowboy bankers on the bank’s Board having found just the spot for that old bar in his $1,000,000 log home on the 14th fairway of Pole Creek Golf Course.
However, there was one small issue that these lawyers failed to consider before raising the hackles on their clients back to the point where they were asked to write expensive emails to my lawyer. Not one of the items advertised in the auction preview was at The Riverside – they belonged to the auctioneer, who intended to cart them from Denver to Hot Sulphur for sale, using The Riverside as nothing more than a vessel to give what weren’t probably genuine antiques in the first place a needed air of authenticity. Trust me; other than the Brunswick Bar, Abe left nothing of value at The Riverside after selling us the hotel and certainly not a valuable ‘antique anything’ that he could have otherwise carted off.
Back and forth, the emails went between the SBA, the bank and my attorney regarding this auction that was to be held for items that didn’t belong to any of the participants. The SBA attorney was including terms such as “in violation of the law” and “punishable by fines, imprisonment or both”; I just wanted to sell the beds we bought for the hotel, not rip the tags off of them. What we were talking about selling in the auction that did belong to us – remember, most all of value that we had left behind had already been pilfered – were principally the 14 primo queen beds that we’d purchased for the hotel, and are still technically paying for on our Master Card. I sat back, helplessly, as I watched one email after the other fly back and forth between my attorney and the attorneys for Grand County Bank and the SBA, all the while envisioning the dollar signs mounting into an ever burgeoning pile.
Finally, at about 10:00 PM that evening after the umpteenth email, I could stand the legal raping and pillaging no longer. I sent all three attorneys the following email; I won’t deny that alcohol might have helped fuel this rant.
Gentlemen: Re the auction of assets.
We're talking about selling some beds, beds that I'm still paying for on my Master Card, that were purchased after the 2007, bifurcated, 504, blah, blah, blah screw job loan that I signed without the aid of counsel. The auction company that we hired (after being given the OK by the bank to auction the furnishings) is bringing onto the site numerous items that are their property to sell, and using the old hotel as nothing but a backdrop for the sale of these antiques. Pay Attention - the items being auctioned are not the property of your client, the bank, or either of my LLC's, and are not subject to your lein, or were ever previously at The Riverside; they are being trucked up from Denver to be sold at the site.
Mr Jones (a fictitious name for the SBA lawyer), you say your client is now willing to discuss the ramifications of the bifurcated 504 loan application with me - too late. A representative of your client, Suzy SBA, did not answer 20+ calls, nor respond to any of the 20+ voicemails I left for her, placed between December 1st, 2009, and February 1st, 2010, to discuss her promised 6-month payment deferment due to my hardship. After Grand County Bank (GCB) declared the loan in default in early February, and I did finally get to speak with your client, Ms. Suzy, she rather sheepishly informed me that she was instructed by both Billy & Betty Banker @ GCB, not to return my calls and discuss my situation. I'm guessing the SBA deferral would have interfered with the banks plans to foreclose on the loan and get their guaranteed SBA paycheck.
My wife and I have left our $XXX worth of life’s savings in Colorado at The Riverside. We were trying to sell a few thousand dollars worth of personal effects to defray credit card debts - now it will be used to pay for expensive emails sent by lawyers. I don't know the definition of a bifurcated loan, but I do know the definition of carrion – that’s all that I have left for the bankers and the lawyers.
Mr. Jones, you threaten to come after my assets if we sell our personal items out of The Riverside; good luck with that, as I have no assets for you or anyone to come after. I'm broke! I live in a shitty little rental house in Mississippi, living paycheck to paycheck, and as of this writing, I have $242 in my bank account to get me to my next end-of-the-month payday. Had your client and GCB been as open, honest and diligent about the X's & O's of loaning money as they are about collecting it, neither of us would be in our current situation.
You can have the money from the sale of the beds. May you all sleep well.
That stopped the emails.
To be continued....
However, there was one small issue that these lawyers failed to consider before raising the hackles on their clients back to the point where they were asked to write expensive emails to my lawyer. Not one of the items advertised in the auction preview was at The Riverside – they belonged to the auctioneer, who intended to cart them from Denver to Hot Sulphur for sale, using The Riverside as nothing more than a vessel to give what weren’t probably genuine antiques in the first place a needed air of authenticity. Trust me; other than the Brunswick Bar, Abe left nothing of value at The Riverside after selling us the hotel and certainly not a valuable ‘antique anything’ that he could have otherwise carted off.
Back and forth, the emails went between the SBA, the bank and my attorney regarding this auction that was to be held for items that didn’t belong to any of the participants. The SBA attorney was including terms such as “in violation of the law” and “punishable by fines, imprisonment or both”; I just wanted to sell the beds we bought for the hotel, not rip the tags off of them. What we were talking about selling in the auction that did belong to us – remember, most all of value that we had left behind had already been pilfered – were principally the 14 primo queen beds that we’d purchased for the hotel, and are still technically paying for on our Master Card. I sat back, helplessly, as I watched one email after the other fly back and forth between my attorney and the attorneys for Grand County Bank and the SBA, all the while envisioning the dollar signs mounting into an ever burgeoning pile.
Finally, at about 10:00 PM that evening after the umpteenth email, I could stand the legal raping and pillaging no longer. I sent all three attorneys the following email; I won’t deny that alcohol might have helped fuel this rant.
Gentlemen: Re the auction of assets.
We're talking about selling some beds, beds that I'm still paying for on my Master Card, that were purchased after the 2007, bifurcated, 504, blah, blah, blah screw job loan that I signed without the aid of counsel. The auction company that we hired (after being given the OK by the bank to auction the furnishings) is bringing onto the site numerous items that are their property to sell, and using the old hotel as nothing but a backdrop for the sale of these antiques. Pay Attention - the items being auctioned are not the property of your client, the bank, or either of my LLC's, and are not subject to your lein, or were ever previously at The Riverside; they are being trucked up from Denver to be sold at the site.
Mr Jones (a fictitious name for the SBA lawyer), you say your client is now willing to discuss the ramifications of the bifurcated 504 loan application with me - too late. A representative of your client, Suzy SBA, did not answer 20+ calls, nor respond to any of the 20+ voicemails I left for her, placed between December 1st, 2009, and February 1st, 2010, to discuss her promised 6-month payment deferment due to my hardship. After Grand County Bank (GCB) declared the loan in default in early February, and I did finally get to speak with your client, Ms. Suzy, she rather sheepishly informed me that she was instructed by both Billy & Betty Banker @ GCB, not to return my calls and discuss my situation. I'm guessing the SBA deferral would have interfered with the banks plans to foreclose on the loan and get their guaranteed SBA paycheck.
My wife and I have left our $XXX worth of life’s savings in Colorado at The Riverside. We were trying to sell a few thousand dollars worth of personal effects to defray credit card debts - now it will be used to pay for expensive emails sent by lawyers. I don't know the definition of a bifurcated loan, but I do know the definition of carrion – that’s all that I have left for the bankers and the lawyers.
Mr. Jones, you threaten to come after my assets if we sell our personal items out of The Riverside; good luck with that, as I have no assets for you or anyone to come after. I'm broke! I live in a shitty little rental house in Mississippi, living paycheck to paycheck, and as of this writing, I have $242 in my bank account to get me to my next end-of-the-month payday. Had your client and GCB been as open, honest and diligent about the X's & O's of loaning money as they are about collecting it, neither of us would be in our current situation.
You can have the money from the sale of the beds. May you all sleep well.
That stopped the emails.
To be continued....
Monday, November 1, 2010
Friday the 13th...The Final Chapter / Part V
The deeper we went into the summer of our fiscal discontent, the more it became apparent that I was going to have to go back to work full time, way sooner than I had imagined; I was going to need every penny I could muster to help keep the sinking ship afloat. The plan involved me moving back to Kansas City, living in our unsold house and working at my old KC office. When our KC house sold, I’d move to an apartment in Jackson, and Julie would join me when the hotel sold. This solution to our problem, which involved living apart, was beyond distasteful to us, but there was really no other available alternative. We felt in our hearts that someone would come along and buy the place within the next two years, and with my job, Julie getting a job and the help of the bank in refinancing the loan (Not!), we’d be able to hang on long enough to sell.
After the Labor Day holiday weekend – the final thud to the summer from a revenue perspective – I packed some clothes, a few personal effects, a picture of Lucy and my fishing rods, and headed back to the old homestead in KC. As luck would have it (or perhaps by dropping our asking price by 30%), we had two offers on the house after two days on the market, and quickly selected what seemed the better of the two. This didn’t come without some wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, as even though the house was now priced considerably below its appraised value, it was, after all, still a buyers market. To ultimately close the deal, we had to put in four new windows, a new furnace, cut down a tree, paint some trim, fix part of the roof and throw in the brand new washer and dryer we’d just purchased. No hard feelings though, I wish the buyers well; and may they have all of their toilets simultaneously clog while prepping for their joint colostomy procedure!
The rest of the story has been told, including most importantly the bank and the SBA’s nefarious dealings, and we can fast forward to closing down the hotel, Julie moving to join me in Mississippi and me trying to get out of our ownership position with grace, notwithstanding already having had our financial asses handed to us.
On June 15th, 2010, I received a letter sent regular mail from the Grand County Treasurer. It stated, that “on August 13th, 2010, at 10:00 AM MST, on the steps of the Grand County Courthouse, the dwelling and real estate that is comprised of Plat # 23, 509 Grand Street, Longitude 32, Latitude 44, yadda yadda yadda....will be sold at public auction.”
So this is what our dream had come to; it was as cold and impersonal as Grand County itself.
There was no adjoining letter from the bank, nothing from the SBA – not a phone call or email to explain, describe, question or quantify the process to which were to be subjected. I had a lot of questions, but the only person who might be able to answer them would charge me $300/hour, and to this point, I’d have had more substantive results from my dealings with the legal profession regarding The Riverside by pissing away the money that I’d already given the lawyer on lottery tickets.
I didn’t hear anything from anyone for the next few weeks, until I received a call from a friend who was watching the hotel. He was contacted by that kind banker who called me with the bad foreclosure news, asking for a tour of the hotel. I guess he wanted another look at the property that they were going to purchase and own, if only for a few weeks before the SBA purchased it from them. When we left the hotel, we left it in stellar shape – show ready condition for a sale. The only thing we took were our personal furnishings, leaving all of the furniture we acquired from Abe, as well as the bar and restaurant furniture, all of the beds and bedroom furniture, all of the kitchen equipment (which we didn’t own), our two leather sofas and my favorite rocking chair.
We hadn’t been gone a week when it was reported to us that most of the remaining furniture – certainly all of the good stuff - ended up finding its way to various residences throughout Hot Sulphur Springs. Next went most of the pictures and decorator nick-nacks; those same pictures and nick-nacks that I literally risked my life transporting one night whilst pulling a 12’x 9’ U Haul trailer over Berthoud Pass in the middle of a big ass, total white-out blizzard.
So, as the banker was touring the place, my friend apologetically explained that we had left the place in better shape than it now appeared, and we had left quit a bit of furniture that was no longer on the property, the banker said “I couldn’t care less about the furniture, I’m only interested in the real estate.” Upon hearing this, I asked my friend to clarify a few things with his contact at the bank, mainly, could we auction off what of value we’d left behind that hadn’t been absconded with by the locals, including the original Brunswick Bar? While the thought of that bar not being at The Riverside pained me – it’s been there for 100 years – the thought of maybe getting a good chunk of money for it and helping to salve a few of our financial wounds at least had to be perfunctorily examined. The answer I received back from the bank was “we’re not interested in the contents, including the bar. If they can haul it out, they can have it.”
We only had two weeks before the foreclosure, so I quickly went about trying to find an auctioneer in the Denver area who would be interested in helping us unload what was left of The Riverside, sans the real estate; and oh did I find one. My hot streak of bad decisions being buffeted by worse luck was still solidly intact. It wasn’t long before it occurred to me that the auctioneer I hired, while not coming in very high on the Google list of ‘Denver-area auctioneers’, would have been first on the list had I Googled ‘disreputable, thieving, crooked Denver-area auctioneers’.
After a brief description of the property and the limited items we had to offer, not only was the auctioneer interested in holding the auction, he was most interested in the Brunswick Bar, as he said the current demand for these is “through the roof”. He was so interested that he drove to Hot Sulphur Springs the next morning, toured the hotel, stopped at the bank to discuss the auction and had me a contract to sign by that next afternoon. Can you say it again with me, le big-time, grand drapeau rouge?
After the Labor Day holiday weekend – the final thud to the summer from a revenue perspective – I packed some clothes, a few personal effects, a picture of Lucy and my fishing rods, and headed back to the old homestead in KC. As luck would have it (or perhaps by dropping our asking price by 30%), we had two offers on the house after two days on the market, and quickly selected what seemed the better of the two. This didn’t come without some wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, as even though the house was now priced considerably below its appraised value, it was, after all, still a buyers market. To ultimately close the deal, we had to put in four new windows, a new furnace, cut down a tree, paint some trim, fix part of the roof and throw in the brand new washer and dryer we’d just purchased. No hard feelings though, I wish the buyers well; and may they have all of their toilets simultaneously clog while prepping for their joint colostomy procedure!
The rest of the story has been told, including most importantly the bank and the SBA’s nefarious dealings, and we can fast forward to closing down the hotel, Julie moving to join me in Mississippi and me trying to get out of our ownership position with grace, notwithstanding already having had our financial asses handed to us.
On June 15th, 2010, I received a letter sent regular mail from the Grand County Treasurer. It stated, that “on August 13th, 2010, at 10:00 AM MST, on the steps of the Grand County Courthouse, the dwelling and real estate that is comprised of Plat # 23, 509 Grand Street, Longitude 32, Latitude 44, yadda yadda yadda....will be sold at public auction.”
So this is what our dream had come to; it was as cold and impersonal as Grand County itself.
There was no adjoining letter from the bank, nothing from the SBA – not a phone call or email to explain, describe, question or quantify the process to which were to be subjected. I had a lot of questions, but the only person who might be able to answer them would charge me $300/hour, and to this point, I’d have had more substantive results from my dealings with the legal profession regarding The Riverside by pissing away the money that I’d already given the lawyer on lottery tickets.
I didn’t hear anything from anyone for the next few weeks, until I received a call from a friend who was watching the hotel. He was contacted by that kind banker who called me with the bad foreclosure news, asking for a tour of the hotel. I guess he wanted another look at the property that they were going to purchase and own, if only for a few weeks before the SBA purchased it from them. When we left the hotel, we left it in stellar shape – show ready condition for a sale. The only thing we took were our personal furnishings, leaving all of the furniture we acquired from Abe, as well as the bar and restaurant furniture, all of the beds and bedroom furniture, all of the kitchen equipment (which we didn’t own), our two leather sofas and my favorite rocking chair.
We hadn’t been gone a week when it was reported to us that most of the remaining furniture – certainly all of the good stuff - ended up finding its way to various residences throughout Hot Sulphur Springs. Next went most of the pictures and decorator nick-nacks; those same pictures and nick-nacks that I literally risked my life transporting one night whilst pulling a 12’x 9’ U Haul trailer over Berthoud Pass in the middle of a big ass, total white-out blizzard.
So, as the banker was touring the place, my friend apologetically explained that we had left the place in better shape than it now appeared, and we had left quit a bit of furniture that was no longer on the property, the banker said “I couldn’t care less about the furniture, I’m only interested in the real estate.” Upon hearing this, I asked my friend to clarify a few things with his contact at the bank, mainly, could we auction off what of value we’d left behind that hadn’t been absconded with by the locals, including the original Brunswick Bar? While the thought of that bar not being at The Riverside pained me – it’s been there for 100 years – the thought of maybe getting a good chunk of money for it and helping to salve a few of our financial wounds at least had to be perfunctorily examined. The answer I received back from the bank was “we’re not interested in the contents, including the bar. If they can haul it out, they can have it.”
We only had two weeks before the foreclosure, so I quickly went about trying to find an auctioneer in the Denver area who would be interested in helping us unload what was left of The Riverside, sans the real estate; and oh did I find one. My hot streak of bad decisions being buffeted by worse luck was still solidly intact. It wasn’t long before it occurred to me that the auctioneer I hired, while not coming in very high on the Google list of ‘Denver-area auctioneers’, would have been first on the list had I Googled ‘disreputable, thieving, crooked Denver-area auctioneers’.
After a brief description of the property and the limited items we had to offer, not only was the auctioneer interested in holding the auction, he was most interested in the Brunswick Bar, as he said the current demand for these is “through the roof”. He was so interested that he drove to Hot Sulphur Springs the next morning, toured the hotel, stopped at the bank to discuss the auction and had me a contract to sign by that next afternoon. Can you say it again with me, le big-time, grand drapeau rouge?
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Friday the 13th...The Final Chapter / Part IV
Our only possible way out of this financial doomsday was to try and sell the hotel. It had been our plan to give the hotel business at least five years, and as many as ten, at which point we’d have the business soundly established, the place refurbished, the mortgage retired, and we’d sell the joint for $2 million bucks and move on to the next phase in our lives. Can you guess how far reality has taken us away from that scenario?
Now comes proof positive that not only is there a just God, but more importantly, proof of the existence of a God that seems to have a soft spot for idiots. In April of 2009, my old employer called, out of the blue, and asked if I’d be interested in working on some special projects for them. It had been a year since I’d left their employ, and had virtually no contact with them during that time; regardless of how dire my situation had become, my last expected source of relief would have come from a company that, with no warning, I had walked out on. There were some in the organization that were upset with me for leaving; they’d had plans to promote me and move me to Jackson, MS, and my leaving put a bit of a hole in their organizational chart. I didn’t figure they’d have me back if I’d have come begging and crawling, let alone have them initiate my return; I’d have never hired me back. Wonders truly never cease, and the sun occasionally shines on the simple minded.
The offer was for me to work ‘part-time’ for as long as the next two years, during which time we would sell the hotel, and then come back to work full time; and no ifs, ands or buts, that full time thing included relocating to the corporate office in Jackson. Some might have cautioned that I play harder to get, as it was they who contacted me, and in spite of the Business Boner of the Millennium that I had committed, they still placed a value on my services. Let me tell you, I was as coy with them as a Times Square hooker; a nanosecond seems an eternity to the speed at which I accepted their generous offer. The only one who moved faster than me at accepting their largesse was Julie in pushing me to accept; I believe I still have the bruises on my shoulder blades where she pushed me.
And then came Miracle #2 – we had a buyer for the hotel. We were approached by an individual – a local – who expressed what I felt at the time was a serious and sincere interest in buying the hotel. Not only did they have the desire to own The Riverside, but I believed that they had the resources; mentions were actually made of “cashing in CD’s” to fund the purchase of the property. It was at this point that Julie and I mentally checked out as the owners and operators of The Riverside. Julie immediately went from looking online for 2nd income opportunities to looking for tony residences in Mississippi. We weren’t going to sell the hotel for that gaudy dream sum I mentioned earlier, but we were going to recoup all that we had invested into the business, and that was enough to get us out of debt and put us into a home in Jackson.
However, that “mentally checking out” thing ended up being critical towards our ultimate demise, as we would have definitely done things differently if we didn’t think (actually, we were 99% certain) that we had the place sold. I’m not saying we would have been able to salvage the place, just that we would have put time, money and resources in different areas that may have allowed us to ultimately sell the property, and at the very least, minimize some of the bleeding that ultimately occurred.
I really checked out, as I started traveling a bit for the new job in early June, leaving Julie and Rachel behind to fend for themselves. I also quit paying attention to the business side of the business, the penalty of which I would later pay for with some late, frantic nights trying to assemble for the IRS the gory financial details of a year in ruin.
In the middle of July, the buyer for the hotel swiftly, and without warning, backed out of the deal. We quickly contacted a realtor – a friend who was confident that if properly marketed, we’d be able to sell the hotel, even in the current economic climate – and officially put the hotel on the market. In the first few weeks, we had a few people kick the tires, but no serious buyers. What appeared to be our first serious prospect were a young couple who flew down from New York to look at the place – it was their dream to own a B&B in Colorado; and while they loved The Riverside, they were savvy enough (as savvy as your average 5-year old would be savvy, which is unfortunately savvier than me) to know what a tough go it would be to make a living in the out-of-the way shithole that is Hot Sulphur Springs. “Thanks, but no thanks”, they said.
Next we had a business owner from nearby Glenwood Springs, a man who’d made a good living in the construction supply business and was looking to sell that business and make a lifestyle change. (Take it from me; buying The Riverside and moving to Hot Sulphur Springs would slake the thirst of the thirstiest lifestyle changing wanna-be.) This really had me excited, as here we had an individual that was a native, already accustomed to the brutal life and winters of small town, mountainous Colorado, which was the major put-off for our heretofore interested Yankees; and more importantly, he had the money to actually make it happen. His first tour of the property had him salivating, envisioning then vocalizing the improvements he would make, including building a covered, heated deck overlooking the river, with French doors out of the dining room onto the deck. I watched with muted glee as he excitedly painted a picture of the life he was going to change and the business he was going to transform. As he left, he made arrangements to come back and spend the next weekend with his family at the hotel. I never heard from him again.
Then there was a woman from Iowa, who’d inherited a large sum of money and “really wanted to do something crazy with the rest of her life”, something I suppose that wouldn’t ultimately define her as an Iowan. It turns out she met a man from Denver, (in an ‘online’ dating forum, that sacred place where those oh-so strongest of personal bonds are formed), and he knew of The Riverside and knew with the right people running the place, they could make a go of it. He actually told our realtor that we were idiots and had no clue about what we were doing, which was why we were failing so miserably; while his assessment of us was spot on, my hurt feelings would have quickly disappeared when the check cleared. The woman was making the arrangements to visit us, and her cyber beau for the first time, when she called to ask me some questions. It was maybe a few words into the conversation when it occurred to me that if there was someone on this earth with less sense than I, she was in fact now on the other end of the phone line, in Des Moines. She told me that she was starting to have second thoughts, not so much about buying the hotel and moving to Colorado, but about her boyfriend, as in their last few discussions, he had become verbally violent and abusive towards her, and she wasn’t certain if she still wanted to include him in the venture. “Oy!” I thought. She never heard from me again.
And so went the attempted sale of The Riverside…….
Now comes proof positive that not only is there a just God, but more importantly, proof of the existence of a God that seems to have a soft spot for idiots. In April of 2009, my old employer called, out of the blue, and asked if I’d be interested in working on some special projects for them. It had been a year since I’d left their employ, and had virtually no contact with them during that time; regardless of how dire my situation had become, my last expected source of relief would have come from a company that, with no warning, I had walked out on. There were some in the organization that were upset with me for leaving; they’d had plans to promote me and move me to Jackson, MS, and my leaving put a bit of a hole in their organizational chart. I didn’t figure they’d have me back if I’d have come begging and crawling, let alone have them initiate my return; I’d have never hired me back. Wonders truly never cease, and the sun occasionally shines on the simple minded.
The offer was for me to work ‘part-time’ for as long as the next two years, during which time we would sell the hotel, and then come back to work full time; and no ifs, ands or buts, that full time thing included relocating to the corporate office in Jackson. Some might have cautioned that I play harder to get, as it was they who contacted me, and in spite of the Business Boner of the Millennium that I had committed, they still placed a value on my services. Let me tell you, I was as coy with them as a Times Square hooker; a nanosecond seems an eternity to the speed at which I accepted their generous offer. The only one who moved faster than me at accepting their largesse was Julie in pushing me to accept; I believe I still have the bruises on my shoulder blades where she pushed me.
And then came Miracle #2 – we had a buyer for the hotel. We were approached by an individual – a local – who expressed what I felt at the time was a serious and sincere interest in buying the hotel. Not only did they have the desire to own The Riverside, but I believed that they had the resources; mentions were actually made of “cashing in CD’s” to fund the purchase of the property. It was at this point that Julie and I mentally checked out as the owners and operators of The Riverside. Julie immediately went from looking online for 2nd income opportunities to looking for tony residences in Mississippi. We weren’t going to sell the hotel for that gaudy dream sum I mentioned earlier, but we were going to recoup all that we had invested into the business, and that was enough to get us out of debt and put us into a home in Jackson.
However, that “mentally checking out” thing ended up being critical towards our ultimate demise, as we would have definitely done things differently if we didn’t think (actually, we were 99% certain) that we had the place sold. I’m not saying we would have been able to salvage the place, just that we would have put time, money and resources in different areas that may have allowed us to ultimately sell the property, and at the very least, minimize some of the bleeding that ultimately occurred.
I really checked out, as I started traveling a bit for the new job in early June, leaving Julie and Rachel behind to fend for themselves. I also quit paying attention to the business side of the business, the penalty of which I would later pay for with some late, frantic nights trying to assemble for the IRS the gory financial details of a year in ruin.
In the middle of July, the buyer for the hotel swiftly, and without warning, backed out of the deal. We quickly contacted a realtor – a friend who was confident that if properly marketed, we’d be able to sell the hotel, even in the current economic climate – and officially put the hotel on the market. In the first few weeks, we had a few people kick the tires, but no serious buyers. What appeared to be our first serious prospect were a young couple who flew down from New York to look at the place – it was their dream to own a B&B in Colorado; and while they loved The Riverside, they were savvy enough (as savvy as your average 5-year old would be savvy, which is unfortunately savvier than me) to know what a tough go it would be to make a living in the out-of-the way shithole that is Hot Sulphur Springs. “Thanks, but no thanks”, they said.
Next we had a business owner from nearby Glenwood Springs, a man who’d made a good living in the construction supply business and was looking to sell that business and make a lifestyle change. (Take it from me; buying The Riverside and moving to Hot Sulphur Springs would slake the thirst of the thirstiest lifestyle changing wanna-be.) This really had me excited, as here we had an individual that was a native, already accustomed to the brutal life and winters of small town, mountainous Colorado, which was the major put-off for our heretofore interested Yankees; and more importantly, he had the money to actually make it happen. His first tour of the property had him salivating, envisioning then vocalizing the improvements he would make, including building a covered, heated deck overlooking the river, with French doors out of the dining room onto the deck. I watched with muted glee as he excitedly painted a picture of the life he was going to change and the business he was going to transform. As he left, he made arrangements to come back and spend the next weekend with his family at the hotel. I never heard from him again.
Then there was a woman from Iowa, who’d inherited a large sum of money and “really wanted to do something crazy with the rest of her life”, something I suppose that wouldn’t ultimately define her as an Iowan. It turns out she met a man from Denver, (in an ‘online’ dating forum, that sacred place where those oh-so strongest of personal bonds are formed), and he knew of The Riverside and knew with the right people running the place, they could make a go of it. He actually told our realtor that we were idiots and had no clue about what we were doing, which was why we were failing so miserably; while his assessment of us was spot on, my hurt feelings would have quickly disappeared when the check cleared. The woman was making the arrangements to visit us, and her cyber beau for the first time, when she called to ask me some questions. It was maybe a few words into the conversation when it occurred to me that if there was someone on this earth with less sense than I, she was in fact now on the other end of the phone line, in Des Moines. She told me that she was starting to have second thoughts, not so much about buying the hotel and moving to Colorado, but about her boyfriend, as in their last few discussions, he had become verbally violent and abusive towards her, and she wasn’t certain if she still wanted to include him in the venture. “Oy!” I thought. She never heard from me again.
And so went the attempted sale of The Riverside…….
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Friday the 13th...The Final Chapter / Part III
The previous owner of The Riverside ran a cash-only business, (I think, duh, maybe for screwing the IRA tax reasons) and therefore, kept no reliable records as to the earning potential of the hotel and restaurant; no occupancy rates, no average # of diners/month, no monthly or annual revenue figures – nothing. So not only did we quit good jobs and leave friends and family to buy a 106-year old haunted building in need of major repairs with fetid living quarters in an out-of-the-way town that smells like rotten eggs in a climate that would freeze the ass off of Nanook of the North for nine months out of the year, we also invested our life savings into the textbook definition of a financial "pig-in-the-poke".
The business plan that I developed for the bank was based upon some wild-ass guesses using formulas that involved days of operation, number of rooms, number of dining room seats, room rates per night and price of the average meal ticket, and put that against estimated monthly expenses – most of which came from Abe; no, unfortunately not Honest Abe Lincoln, but Abe Rodriguez. I conservatively figured, or so I thought at the time, that our break even point was at a 20% occupancy rate. I actually took a lot of time putting occupancy numbers together, with bell curves trending during busy seasons along with expenses, and felt that I had a pretty good grasp of things. After all, (although most who’ve read prior entries to this blog and have marveled at my lack of business acumen, nay in many instances, my lack of a single, properly functioning brain cell, will call absolute screaming BS on this) I ran a successful business for the better part of 20 years, a large part of which involved the financial management of budgets and expenses and generation of revenues. So while I was a neophyte in the hotel and restaurant business, I certainly wasn’t a neophyte in running a successful business. While The Riverside was nothing but an endless string of bad decisions, I previously had a history of making mostly good decisions; the bank relied upon that fact in buying into my 20% occupancy rate business plan, which included 5-year cash flow and pro-formas.
The first summer seemed to go pretty well, in spite of the fact that we’d done zero marketing or advertising. We ended up being at full occupancy every Saturday night from the middle of June until mid September, with numerous near sell outs throughout the weeknights. Our lunch traffic was steady to good throughout the summer, with bustling dinner business on the weekends. I was able to comfortably pay the bills, and even had the cash to make an extra mortgage payment in September. But in October and November, our business dropped like a Boulder boulder; but the expenses held steady. I started eating through our cash like a victorious football team at a post-game buffet. A decent Christmas season helped momentarily to right the ship; then came the off-season (January, February and March), followed by the dead season, or more commonly referred to as ‘mud season’, which is comprised of April, May and the first two weeks of June. I terrifically miscalculated the amount of business that was available to us during Ski season; from a lodging perspective, it was virtually non-existent, as skiers want to be on the slopes, and we were 25 miles away from Winter Park. If not for Valentines Day weekend and a couple of group events, our first full winter would have been disastrous. It was in March that I went to the bank for that promised line-of-credit that was ultimately denied; if not for me raiding my 401k, we wouldn’t have made it to our second summer season.
We shut the hotel down in mid-April after an Easter Sunday brunch and headed to KC for a few weeks. We still had our unsold, unoccupied home in KC that we were making payments on – a situation that never even in my ‘worst case scenario’ plan occurred to me when we packed up in June of 2008 and headed west; not only was I not budgeting in a house payment, I had budgeted in the income from the quick sale of that house at pre-depression real estate values.
There was another nasty little ‘what if?’ that I missed when I was running the business plan numbers on this venture that was now strangling us to a slow, very intense fiscal death – the depression. While I now have profound doubts about our ability to have been successful at The Riverside in a robust economy, I for damn sure know the current state of the economy didn’t do anything but hurt our situation. As bad as things are nationally, they’re far worse in Grand County, CO, with the hub of the pain and suffering being centered in Hot Sulphur Springs – the county seat. The whole raison d’être behind Grand County, CO is tourism, and tourism is fueled by discretionary spending and discretionary spending is the first thing to dry up in a depressed economy.
The difference between our first summer (economy still robust) and our second summer (economy in the toilet) was profound and immediately discernable. Our bustling lunch business of 2008 disappeared in the summer of 2009; on many days not a single soul walked through the door, but a cook was paid and the prepped food went to waste. It was a slow, agonizing financial death; by August I’d sent home all of the peripheral help, and it was down to Julie, our cook and me to handle all of the chores. I had way too much 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM empty lunch time, listening to the dining room playlists and reading books, whilst sitting, hoping and praying that a customer would walk through the door; not one second of it was relaxing or enjoyable.
Our 2009 pre-season hotel room bookings were non-existent and the Saturday afternoon walk-in crowd of 2008 that filled the hotel every single weekend was hunkered down someplace else. Business was in the toilet but the fixed expenses were still in the penthouse.
We were bleeding, we were dying, and the coffers were bare….
The business plan that I developed for the bank was based upon some wild-ass guesses using formulas that involved days of operation, number of rooms, number of dining room seats, room rates per night and price of the average meal ticket, and put that against estimated monthly expenses – most of which came from Abe; no, unfortunately not Honest Abe Lincoln, but Abe Rodriguez. I conservatively figured, or so I thought at the time, that our break even point was at a 20% occupancy rate. I actually took a lot of time putting occupancy numbers together, with bell curves trending during busy seasons along with expenses, and felt that I had a pretty good grasp of things. After all, (although most who’ve read prior entries to this blog and have marveled at my lack of business acumen, nay in many instances, my lack of a single, properly functioning brain cell, will call absolute screaming BS on this) I ran a successful business for the better part of 20 years, a large part of which involved the financial management of budgets and expenses and generation of revenues. So while I was a neophyte in the hotel and restaurant business, I certainly wasn’t a neophyte in running a successful business. While The Riverside was nothing but an endless string of bad decisions, I previously had a history of making mostly good decisions; the bank relied upon that fact in buying into my 20% occupancy rate business plan, which included 5-year cash flow and pro-formas.
The first summer seemed to go pretty well, in spite of the fact that we’d done zero marketing or advertising. We ended up being at full occupancy every Saturday night from the middle of June until mid September, with numerous near sell outs throughout the weeknights. Our lunch traffic was steady to good throughout the summer, with bustling dinner business on the weekends. I was able to comfortably pay the bills, and even had the cash to make an extra mortgage payment in September. But in October and November, our business dropped like a Boulder boulder; but the expenses held steady. I started eating through our cash like a victorious football team at a post-game buffet. A decent Christmas season helped momentarily to right the ship; then came the off-season (January, February and March), followed by the dead season, or more commonly referred to as ‘mud season’, which is comprised of April, May and the first two weeks of June. I terrifically miscalculated the amount of business that was available to us during Ski season; from a lodging perspective, it was virtually non-existent, as skiers want to be on the slopes, and we were 25 miles away from Winter Park. If not for Valentines Day weekend and a couple of group events, our first full winter would have been disastrous. It was in March that I went to the bank for that promised line-of-credit that was ultimately denied; if not for me raiding my 401k, we wouldn’t have made it to our second summer season.
We shut the hotel down in mid-April after an Easter Sunday brunch and headed to KC for a few weeks. We still had our unsold, unoccupied home in KC that we were making payments on – a situation that never even in my ‘worst case scenario’ plan occurred to me when we packed up in June of 2008 and headed west; not only was I not budgeting in a house payment, I had budgeted in the income from the quick sale of that house at pre-depression real estate values.
There was another nasty little ‘what if?’ that I missed when I was running the business plan numbers on this venture that was now strangling us to a slow, very intense fiscal death – the depression. While I now have profound doubts about our ability to have been successful at The Riverside in a robust economy, I for damn sure know the current state of the economy didn’t do anything but hurt our situation. As bad as things are nationally, they’re far worse in Grand County, CO, with the hub of the pain and suffering being centered in Hot Sulphur Springs – the county seat. The whole raison d’être behind Grand County, CO is tourism, and tourism is fueled by discretionary spending and discretionary spending is the first thing to dry up in a depressed economy.
The difference between our first summer (economy still robust) and our second summer (economy in the toilet) was profound and immediately discernable. Our bustling lunch business of 2008 disappeared in the summer of 2009; on many days not a single soul walked through the door, but a cook was paid and the prepped food went to waste. It was a slow, agonizing financial death; by August I’d sent home all of the peripheral help, and it was down to Julie, our cook and me to handle all of the chores. I had way too much 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM empty lunch time, listening to the dining room playlists and reading books, whilst sitting, hoping and praying that a customer would walk through the door; not one second of it was relaxing or enjoyable.
Our 2009 pre-season hotel room bookings were non-existent and the Saturday afternoon walk-in crowd of 2008 that filled the hotel every single weekend was hunkered down someplace else. Business was in the toilet but the fixed expenses were still in the penthouse.
We were bleeding, we were dying, and the coffers were bare….
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