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Reprinted with permission
from The Jewish Georgian
In Virginia Highland,
a B&B rises from the ashes
by Belle Klavonsky
June 6, 1995 was an unremarkable night for Adele Northrup. She made her usual preparations
for bed, and drifted off to sleep to calming music. The next morning, she left her
Virginia Highland home for work. That was the last time anything in Adele's life
would be ordinary.
At 8:00 p.m. Adele drove up to her house, and was disgusted to find piles of trash
on the curb. She couldn't imagine how her normally kind neighbors could be so thoughtless.
However, as she pulled into the driveway, she realized that it wasn't their trash.
"It was my bed, my nightstand, all my bedroom furniture. Then I looked up and
saw that the window frames were charred." Neighbors ran out of their houses
to meet a stunned Adele at her car and tell her what had happened.
It turned out that the tape that lulled Adele to sleep the night before had become
jammed in her tape deck. Instead of shutting off, the tape deck overheated until
the stuck tape finally ignited. The resulting fire gutted the bedroom, and there
was extensive smoke damage throughout the rest of the house.
The time after the fire was grueling. Adele moved to a nearby apartment, where she
lived for the next year as she haggled with insurers and contractors.
The fire should have been a nightmare, but instead, Adele Northrup
turned it into
a dream, a long-held dream of owning a bed & breakfast.
"When there's a fire, the city closes down your house and cuts off your utilities.
Even if you think it's inhabitable, they won't let you move back in until they consider
it safe," she explains. "I figured that my life was going to be completely
disrupted anyway. Why should I just put the house back the way it was, when I could
remodel it into something I really wanted?"
Not that it was easy. Adele trudged to the house every day to monitor the work, went
to endless zoning meetings, and negotiated with architects, contractors, and inspectors.
She was often depressed and overwhelmed. "It was such a bad time, I thought
I'd never get over it. But, now I rarely think about it. The B & B allowed me
to retire early, to have a good life in a beautiful setting."
The Virginia Highland Bed and Breakfast opened in May 1996. In the following two
months, Adele entertained one lone guest. Then came the Olympic onslaught, and suddenly
Adele's charming craftsman-style bungalow was a hot little property. "Things
were so busy that I could have rented tent sites in the yard," she says. Her
guest book from that time only begins to hint at the excitementŔit bears the signatures
of Olympic Torch Relay organizers; US javelin thrower Nicole Carroll and her coach;
swimmer Bjrn Zikarsky, the bronze medallist in the 400-meter relay; and families
from Brazil, Nicaragua, and France.
While Adele feels privileged to be in what is widely acknowledged as "America's
#1 dream profession," she says that few people understand the pressure and tedium
it entails. "You are always on stage. You can't come in and throw a pile of
groceries on the floor, you can't toss your mail down, you have to do the dishes
immediately. It's like having the house on the market all the time. The moment a
guest leaves, you have to get the house back in order, because you never know when
the phone is going to ring."
In her small operation, Adele is the chef, maid, gardener, publicist, decorator,
raconteur, and bookkeeper. It is up to her to maintain everything from sparkling
toilets to sparkling conversation.
In her former life, Adele was known around town as the Plant Lady, the name of her
popular interior landscaping business. Her most famous clientăin fact, the person
she was working for the day of the fireăwas Halle Berry. "She was a lovely young
lady inside and out," Adele recalls. "Despite her wealth and fame, she
wasn't uppity. We ate out a few times, she took me to baseball games, and she even
hired my son to do some hardscaping. Working with her was the culmination of my plant
careerQa nice note to end on. I lost touch with her, but recently I saw a photo of
her garden in Los Angeles, and I'd like to think I could detect a bit of my influence."
Adele never planned a career in the house and garden realm. She studied English literature
and history, and obtained a master's degree in library science. "But I lasted
just two years as a librarian. I can't sit still for long. When I was growing up,
a woman didn't have many choicesăshe could be a teacher, a nurse, a social worker,
or a librarian. I never thought I'd have my own business. But, when women's lib hit
in the '70s, and I found myself divorced, there were many more opportunities. It
was a whole new world, both frightening and exciting. It was like being a pioneer."
Adele's children have been an integral part of her new endeavor. Her son, Benjamin,
now an architecture instructor at Yale, designed the hardscape for her cottage garden,
built the elaborate fence, and helped with plans for the house. When daughter Stephanie
was little, Adele casually mentioned to her the idea of a B & B. Years later,
when Stephanie was 15, she gave Adele a ceramic soap dispenser for Chanukah, and
told her, "This is the first furnishing for the B & B." "She took
my dream seriously, long before I did," Adele says.
Her daughter also inspired her mother's return to Judaism. After graduating from
the University of Virginia, Stephanie, an aspiring screenwriter, moved to Europe,
where, from her base in Prague, she traveled and wrote for two years. While there,
she herself became interested in Judaism. So that, when Adele visited her in January
1998, they attended shul together in the old Prague ghetto, and next traveled to
Poland to visit Auschwitz. "It was very moving," Adele says. "In the
previous 15 years, I had been completely disassociated from my Judaism. But now I
had a sense of history and belonging." Adele is now a member of Anshe S'fard,
the quirky Orthodox congregation in Morningside.
Next time you're in the area, take a spin past the Virginia
Highland Bed & Breakfast
at 630 Orme Circle, N.E. You can't miss ităthe cottage garden beckons from
the street.
Or you can check it out in cyberspace at www.virginiahighlandbb.com.
For
more information or reservations, call Adele at 404-892-2735.
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