The Family Inn

Carrie Davis ’02, general manager, of the Willard Street Inn in Burlington.

For Carrie Davis, Business Runs in the Family

It was the spring of 2005 when Carrie Davis ’02 decided to call her former employer, the Willard Street Inn in Burlington.

Living in Buffalo, New York, Davis had worked at the Inn during college and wanted to move back to Burlington. She was consulting for hospital foodservice programs, and hoped to line up part-time work between consulting jobs.

What Davis found, however, wasn’t part-time work—but the opportunity to be general manager of the Inn, and to live there as well. 

The job came with a bit of a twist. The inn was soon to be put on the market. The innkeepers wondered if Davis’s parents, who had considered relocating to Burlington, might be interested. It turns out they were, and what started as a job for Davis blossomed into a family business.

Today, the Davises are celebrating five years of owning and operating the inn, a 1881 Queen Anne-Georgian Revival located in Burlington’s Hill section, on the edge of the Champlain College campus.

The Davis management team consists of Carrie Davis; her parents, Katie and Larry Davis, innkeepers and owners; and her younger brother Jordan Davis, marketing services manager. Her older brother Matt lives in Taipei, but helps out with IT issues long-distance, as needed.

As manager, Carrie Davis, 30, who received degrees in Hotel/Restaurant Management, Business Management, and Hospitality from Champlain, oversees a staff of 12, handles reservations, and serves as concierge to the guests.

She also does bookkeeping, monitors breakfast service, and helps in the kitchen when needed. She likes to bake and is known as the “cupcake girl” among friends, many of whom are fellow Champlain graduates.

“No two days are ever alike. That keeps it entertaining,” Davis said. “I get to meet really interesting people, and the atmosphere’s not too bad either.”

Growing up in East Aurora, New York, outside Buffalo, Davis enjoyed cooking and baking, but knew she didn’t want to be in the kitchen full-time. She got her first job in the industry at age 16, working at the RoyCroft Inn in East Aurora.

When applying to colleges, she looked for a school with a strong Hospitality program and ultimately chose Champlain. Coincidentally, when she first came to Burlington to visit the college, she stayed at the Willard Street Inn with her parents, never guessing it would be where she ended up.

Throughout college, she worked at local establishments, first at the Inn at Essex—now the Essex Resort & Spa—and then the Willard Street Inn. She often put in 24 to 30 hours a week while going to school full-time.

Her college experience was extremely beneficial in launching her career, Davis said.  It gave her great opportunities, including spending her last semester interning at the Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort on St. Thomas.

Davis liked the fact that she learned not only the hands-on aspects of the business, but pricing and accounting and marketing, along with what happens in the kitchen and the front and back of the house.  Many of the things she learned —such as the finer points of table service—she teaches inn employees today.

“The teachers’ knowledge was not only from academia, but also from work experience, calling on real case scenarios,” Davis said. “My education gave me a good foundation. It set me up for being pretty well-rounded in the industry... It was definitely the right place for me.” —Sona Iyengar