In 2015, there was a massive fire at the Wilmington Motel in Wilmington, California. The family-owned and operated property was completely rebuilt, remodeled and reopened as The Anchor Pointe Inn.
With less than half of the rooms renovated, they opened their shipping container-colored doors on August 1, 2018, advertised solely on Airbnb. They then set out to find the right property management team to sign on as Innkeepers. Mark and Erica were hired and moved into Room 12 on August 18 and immediately became “one of the family” – helping them clear out and set up the Innkeeper’s quarters, the back office, supply storage, and the Front Desk. They were fully operational with 27 rooms available for rent within two months.
Within 11 months, Mark and Erica had accumulated over 750 5-star reviews for 23 rooms (they had 4 other rooms in the building that were only rented to walk-ins, they were not listed on Airbnb). Mark and Erica were instrumental in the hotel’s success; they encouraged increased attention to decor (added the shipping container-color scheme to the stairs, insisted on wall art and carpet in the long, hard-floored hallways, special attention to holiday and festival decoration), they spent 90 days covering every single aspect of the job – from front desk to back office to housekeeping – without any support staff at all, they initiated protocols that made the job so efficient, the owners were able to hire one person to do the job by herself, making it more cost-effective to terminate their contract and hire a single Innkeeper.
Coincidentally, one of their guests from the Anchor Pointe Inn owned some land in the high desert near Lancaster, California and agreed to contract Mark and Erica to manage his property, The Yellow House on the Prairie. They live on a neighboring property, and spend their time writing while looking for additional consulting contracts.
