Built-Inn Challenge

Built-Inn Challenge

TOURISM by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

Kristen and Tim Beury had lots of reasons to not turn their home into a bed and breakfast. A few near-missed mortgage payments and $175,000 in expenses haven't stopped them, though.

Kristen and Tim Beury have long been the types that will do things almost solely to prove to others it can be done.

Take Kristen Beury, who started a medical billing and management firm in 1997, when she was a 27-year-old single mom of a young boy. She had gone to the University of South Florida for psychology, but after a clinical experience in an outpatient psychiatric program, Beury decided she liked the idea of working on the business side of medicine rather than with patients.

Beury built the business literally one client at a time with no start-up capital, finding a niche in figuring out complicated Medicare billing rules. The company, which now focuses on getting new practices set up, has since grown to six employees and nearly $1 million a year in annual revenues.

Then there was the time the Beurys moved to France with their 14-year-old son for a year. They managed the business there, working even harder and more hours overseas than at home.

"We like challenges," says Tim Beury, 34. "And we like to achieve what people think is unachievable."

Good thing, too, because the couple's latest trip into unachievable-land is a doozy: The Beurys recently opened a bed and breakfast, La Palme Royale, just south of downtown Sarasota on Palm Avenue.

It's in an 83-year-old home that once housed both their three-person family and their medical business. It's also one of only two registered bed and breakfasts in the downtown area; the other one, The Cypress - A Bed and Breakfast Inn, is next door.

This challenge has several chapters. First, the Beurys have spent close to two years, at least $175,000 and hundreds of stressful hours - enter near-missed mortgage payments - into making the European-style bed and breakfast a success. "It will take a good year," Kristen Beury says, "to make back all the money we've put into it."

What's more, independent hotels, especially bed and breakfasts, are notorious for their low margins and high maintenance. Owners tend to be in it for their hearts, not the hearty profits.

And finally, the Beurys are running La Palme Royale while simultaneously running Medical Resource.

Catch the dream

The genesis of La Palme Royale started 10 years ago, when Kristen Beury first noticed and began to admire the home at 624 Palm Avenue, which was then owned by a social worker who lived with her daughter in one end and saw clients in the other end. Beury, now 37, had opened Medical Resource down the street, in an office in the Mira Mar Plaza, above a few art galleries.

In 2002 the Beurys bought the home for $700,000 - a steep price at the time for the recently married Beurys but a rock-bottom bargain today, even considering the slumping residential housing market.

The Beurys first made the house an actual home and office. Then in 2005, when the couple was making plans to move to France for a year, they worked out an arrangement with the trio of friends who operate the Cypress, the bed and breakfast next door: The Beurys would open up their house for extra guests or people booked out of the Cypress, and in return, they would get 40% of the revenues.

Upon returning from France, the Beurys decided that turning the home permanently into a bed and breakfast would be a fun challenge. Well, Kristen Beury decided that; Tim Beury wasn't so sure at first. "I'm the dreamer," Kristen Beury says, "and he's my dream catcher."

'De-Miami Vice'

The Beurys then began the actual work of turning the home into a bed and breakfast. Despite the mental and financial hurdles, Kristen Beury calls the effort a "wonderful break from health care."

It started with getting all the necessary permits, both to update the building to various codes and to receive an historic designation from the city of Sarasota. That was a time consuming and costly process, Tim Beury says, but it was also a learning experience in dealing with, and learning how to bargain and compromise with, with government offices and officials.

The Beurys also focused on internal renovations. They had already redesigned the house to their taste, as the prior owner of the home left shiny colored carpets and walls. Says Tim Beury: "We had to de-Miami Vice it."

After that, the Beurys had to get it ready for actual guests. They expanded the deck in the backyard, which has views of Sarasota Bay. They repainted the three upstairs bedrooms. They built a breakfast bar on the ground floor that follows the European theme. And they redid wiring and plumbing.

Meanwhile, costs started piling up. The expenses were a little surprising, the Beurys say, but in their traditional risk-taking fashion, it didn't prevent them from going forward. A major source of funding has come from a few rental properties in Bradenton and Sarasota the Beurys have owned for about five years.

The pay-off officially happened Jan. 1, when La Palme Royale was fully open and operating with all the necessary upgrades and certifications.

"If your business lives and breathes with you," Kristen Beury says, "you always need to change it and improve it."

A revenue ceiling

And there are more changes and improvements to come.

Parking, or lack thereof, has been an issue, as the bed and breakfast has no driveway or parking lot. Guests and visitors currently use street parking and a small unpaved lot across the street.

Also, there is no guest room on the ground floor, only a room that has been used as an office, limiting opportunities to rent the space to elderly guests or others who don't want to have to access stairs. Tim Beury says they have missed out on at least two rentals that would have covered three months by not having a guest suite downstairs. That's about $15,000 in unseen revenue.

Work is underway to fix both problems. On parking, the Beurys are consulting with contractors to build a driveway, which will cost about $25,000. They are also going to renovate the downstairs office into a guest room.

Finally, the Beurys intend to spend this summer, the slow season, promoting and marketing La Palme Royale. In addition to overnight guests, they are seeking to host parties, weddings and meetings at the bed and breakfast.

All this for a business that has a built-in revenue ceiling, even after all the work and expenditures. There are only so many rooms and so many nights in a year - a fact the Beurys are well aware of.

Still, the Beurys fall back on their penchant for taking risks and doing something others think they can't - or shouldn't - do.

"With any business, if you don't take risks, you won't succeed," Tim Beury says. "You'll get left behind."

REVIEW SUMMARY

Business. La Palme Royale, Sarasota

Industry. Tourism, hospitality

Key. Turning a home into a bed and breakfast while simultaneously running a medical billing business has been a costly, albeit exciting, learning experience for a risk-taking couple.