“I had always wanted to run an inn, it was my dream,” says Kathleen Seguin, owner of Bristol House Bed and Breakfast. “I was doing corporate marketing and said ‘if I’m going to do it, it’s now or never.’ I had owned a home in Bristol for four years, and found that my house was zoned for b&b. It took about four months to convert it, and we opened in 2011. This is our third season.”
The Bristol inn has three permanent guest rooms, and a fourth for when a group wants to rent the entire building. People, Kathleen says, are often pleasantly surprised that the rooms are modern and bright. “I wanted comfortable luxury,” she describes. "I wanted people to see that there’s something different. We’re modern and up to date, but traditional. People say, ‘we feel like we’re in our own home, but it’s nicer.’”
What distinguishes Kathleen from other innkeepers is her culinary talent (which often lands her on the Rhode Show and other local media doing cooking demonstrations). She attended the Culinary institute of America in New York, but also credits her mother and grandmother for teaching her how to be creative in the kitchen. Every morning, guests enjoy a full gourmet breakfast. It starts with a fruit course (which could be fresh fruit, yogurt and the inn’s homemade granola, or cantaloupe with a honey, lime, mint syrup) and moves into a sweet or savory hot breakfast like a Belgian yeast waffle or a spinach and white cheddar egg tart. “We’ve become very well known for our maple brown sugar bacon,” she says. “People come back and ask for it.”
For Kathleen, being an innkeeper is basically being a fabulous hostess, but she gets to do it every day. “I love it,” she says. “I love meeting people, cooking, people being happy. We become friends with a lot of our guests. This throws everything together that I love, including Bristol. It’s nice to live in a place that people appreciate.”
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