A Brief History of Ivy Manor & The Troll Who Guards the Gates
Or, an open letter from the first employee
Three years ago I was cooking macaroni in my campervan on top of Utah’s Wasatch mountains when I got a text that would change my life.
In the text: a Zillow link. Below the link, these words: Buying this. Need Manager. The text was from ‘Chuck California’ (as I had him saved in my phone) who I’d met almost a year prior at a friend-of-a-friends random dinner party in LA.
At this dinner, we’d talked business and I told him about my long history working in hospitality. (Mainly at a lodge that hosted Grand Canyon tourists before rafting with them down the Colorado River). We talked real estate, and I told him I wrote Airbnb profiles during my quest for an English degree. He showed me some of the properties he was interested in, and I said, (not thinking anything would ever come of it) “Well, if you ever need a property manager…”
The Zillow link was for an 18-acre estate in Southern California wine country, and the listing had a vague but intriguing description, with promise of “hidden rooms and stairways.” There were a mere dozen photos, mostly of a Danish-style house whose interior walls were oddly painted in oranges, hot pinks, and bright yellows. There were no photos of what I would later consider some of the property’s coolest features, and they were instead mentioned in listicle form at the bottom of the description: hedge maze, ridable model railroad… etc.
My first impression via the Internet was obliterated when I showed up in person a few weeks later. The word that comes to mind is substantial. Of substance, or, with weight. Miles of brick and stone path, life-sized statues, three-story towers, 50-gallon ceramic pots, wrought iron lanterns, thick wooden doors, marble floors, mature trees. There was nothing faux and nothing plastic; it felt out of this century, out of this world, even. And the wall colors? Lore has it, the original owner and architect, Bob, let his grandkids pick those.
I quit my jobs in Utah and moved out less than thirty days later with my campervan and all I owned inside it.
During Ivy Manor’s first year, I ended up relying on a lot of experience I’d never considered might be helpful. In the past, I’d lived in hard-to-reach places that needed a lot of upkeep, whether in my campervan (which I built and traveled in for three years), or at my parents mountain cabin (which I helped renovate and upkeep).
There are unique skills gained from this kind of living. Like how to handle isolation, how to co-exist with wildlife, and how to operate more than a few power tools. But Ivy Manor was a property that had been slumbering for years, and I quickly realized there was no singular job or experience I could’ve had to actually prepare me for its waking.
There was all the boring stuff, yes, scheduling back-flow prevention testing and paying the bills and keeping all four buildings and fourteen bathrooms stocked with essentials. There was also the repainting of over 10,000 square feet of living space, installing a whole new commercial kitchen, relocating several beehives, and reseeding lawns. I had hours of conversation with the original gardener who we were determined to retain (we did, his name is Jaime and he is the most important person in my life). I hung dozens of curtains, sold and/or fixed old, broken furniture, built a website and a Peerspace profile, and fought with Google over changing our business name online. In short, I did a little of everything, and in doing so I learned this place brick by brick.
And this all before we opened our doors to events. In year two, we created a profile on The Knot/Wedding Wire and emails poured in exponentially. So did the learning curves. I read as a couple broke up in the middle of their email to me. Our first wedding was a 250-person extravaganza that went oddly smoothly. I spent one morning considering when it might be reasonable to call the police as one of our brides nearly got into a fist fight with her mother the day they were set to checkout. I’ve teared up during more than one vow exchange. I learned how to deal with loss and heart break while celebrations took place outside my door.
By year three, we had a total of six new employees, including a set-up and strike team, an audio engineer, an operations manager, and a social media manager. My boyfriend Dylan moved in January of this year and has become the designated fix-it man and late-night manager, since I no longer have the time for handy work or the stamina to communicate eloquently with people past 10 pm.
“The owners have called me the Manor Fairy. Garden Troll might be more accurate.”
Just last weekend, I ran upstairs to use the restroom and heard voices that sounded closer to my building than they needed to be. It was possible they were house guests but I chanced a look outside the window anyway. A wedding attendee had just arrived and was attempting to show off to his friends by stealing our golf cart, which was parked directly below me. He turned the key the same time I cracked the window.
“Hey!” I called. “Please do not touch the golf cart.”
He jumped up and looked around, first into the gardens next to him, then up toward the manor on his right, muttering “Who is yelling at me?” as he ran away.
I tell you all of this because if there’s one thing you should know about me and haven’t figured out yet, I’ll state it plainly now: There is nothing more rewarding than sharing this beautiful property with those who are in awe of it like we are. And I will do what I must to protect it, teeth bared if I have too.
General mischief is welcome, so long as it doesn’t threaten the estate. I will fight for the gardens to grow wild and be the first to encourage you to run through them at midnight, lanterns lit and fog rolling in. The troll that guards the gate protects those inside it too. You can consider me your lockbox; I have stared straight past a group of guests sun-bathing nude because I was so intensely focused on saving a frog who’d fallen in the pool and couldn’t get out.
I don’t think there’s much else to know. I suppose I could tell you I turned thirty this year and have dozens of Ivy Manor events and productions under my belt now, including an Alice-in-Wonderland freak show I hosted for my birthday (complete with fire dancers on stilts and contortionists hanging from the ballroom rafters). I know every power and breaker box there is onsite, and how to safely relocate a snake. I hate throwing things away and have a Lost & Found box that is roughly the size of a small car. My goal is to host creative retreats that verge on the occult and I’m organizing a Harry Potter watch party at the manor this Christmas (BYO TV - we only have one here).
If any of what I’ve said scares you, we probably aren’t your people or your place. If it excites you, please schedule a tour. I’ve given over 300 of them and I promise there’s no question too weird.
Once someone asked if we could accommodate a ferris wheel, another if they could bring miniature cows onsite, and last year I was asked to perform an aerial routine during cocktail hour. The answer is yes more often than not, with the right amount of planning. All I ask in return is for you to love this place as much as I do, and I can promise it will return that love to you ten times over.
Written from a desk latticed with squares of sunlight,
