Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Ann McCoy.
Mary Ann, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I arrived in northeastern Italy with a scholarship from USF in Tampa Florida to study Italian 40 years ago. Udine, at the time, a small city which was rather closed to tourism, became my home. I came to Udine instead of Venice, Florence or Rome because Udine is near my mother’s birth town and where she had met my father who was a soldier in the US Army during WWII.
Due to its position being so northeast and near the eastern border which until the Balkan war was communist Yugoslavia, there were very few foreigners living in this historic area rich of nature and culture. I didn’t come here for tourism but as a starting point to learn more about Italian, the language I was majoring in. Udine introduced me to the old world through the family I married into shortly after obtaining my degree. My husband’s family originated as farmers and winemakers. His parents had lived both world wars and despite the city growing fast and changing rapidly, they held on tight to their simple ways. This gave me the opportunity to learn about the real life in Italy and how hard the people of the Friuli Venezia Giulia, this region, had strived to preserve traditions and the beauty of a simple life while evolving into the modern yet culturally rich city it is today. I moved into my husband’s birth home and as years passed and our two daughters enlarged our family, we also lost the elder members who left a large part of our house empty.
I had started my business as an ESL teacher by promoting the English language to companies and wherever I thought international business exchanges were important since the borders had opened to the east and the language used was mostly English. Few schools with affordable courses were available, so I started out slowly but I got sponsorship from the municipalities of small villages and towns offering not only English courses which I taught but I also incorporated two American, a French, a German and a Spanish teacher in my curriculum.
Although I was very busy with my family and many students, I still yearned for more international contacts and wanted to share the beauty of this region at the foothills of the Italian Alps with the rest of the world. Our large house full of history and character and my love for the region and the local cuisine gave me the idea to start a bed and breakfast. There were small pensions and lovely hotels but no B&Bs in the area so I started traveling from north to south promoting the idea of B&Bs to people with large yet empty homes. The idea started rolling and together with about 20 other families we started promoting our idea until the regional leaders were convinced of the idea and passed a law allowing B&Bs in the region to open and promote tourism for the area. Not an easy task at all since people weren’t very open to strangers but curiosity and the desire to share empty homes became interesting and fun to families and elderly couples with large traditional homes.
I started to promote my B&B in Atlanta, Georgia, when I visited family every year, by talking to friends and inviting them to visit Italy and use Udine as a home base to see Europe through the eyes of who knew stories, legends, history and much more of Italy than just a book or an organized tour.
We started with our guests from Atlanta who then spoke about us and then we got on websites and have been offering a different style of vacation, a calmer and more heartwarming pause to sometimes stressful lifestyles. Our B&B is small offering space for ten guests in our family home which is situated near the historic center of Udine, a city easily accessible by plane, train or bus.
It hasn’t been easy. At first, B&Bs were viewed as competition to small hotels and pensions but we were soon accepted and now there are many families in the city offering accommodation in their homes.
My connection to Atlanta has been very important since I have family there and I love its lush nature and southern hospitality. I learn lots from the friendliness of people in Atlanta and do my best to transmit this to each and every guest.
My business teaching English and my B&B have helped put my two daughters through Loyola University in New Orleans. They now live and have prospering jobs in the USA. It took lots of courage and hard work to adapt and fulfill my dreams in this once remote area of Italy north of Venice but it’s been wonderful to meet and make friends with people from all over the world. I keep in contact with very many of our guests and they return to visit saying this is a home away from home for them.
I’m proud of not giving up when I was faced with difficulties so far from home as a 21-year-old straight out of college. My first challenge was that despite speaking Italian when I arrived, people mostly spoke Friulian, a dialect of the region, which I had to learn if I wanted to survive living in an old style family.
Now Udine is a modern city which has maintained its traditions and culture and is proud to offer all it has to visitors from the world and I am thankful to our first guests from Atlanta who helped us promote our business and have taught me what southern hospitality is all about.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t been easy! Most difficulties were caused by the fact that B&Bs were seen as competition to pensions or small family runned hotels. I received many threatening letters, accusations of bringing in ‘foreign’ ideas which weren’t needed but this all disappeared soon after. Another problem which at times still pops up is teamwork. Italians are artisans, artists, creative people who don’t share their talents easily and teamwork is not easy. Although this has changed a lot in time, it’s still hard to share or promote as a group. I continue saying that together we are stronger and we can reach out to tourists and promote our B&Bs more easily but many tend to think that teamwork just means using others to obtain one goal.
Bed and Breakfast Jenny’s Garden – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I’m proud of how far I’ve come and how I’ve been able to help my daughters having my small business. We’ve kept our home as a family home and not as a modern house offering accommodation. We want our guests to feel part of the family and enjoy the traditions, culture, and stories our walls offer. Our home is almost 100 years old and we’ve kept it as original as it has been possible.
We’ve had guests from Australia, USA, New Zealand and the UK who had come following their fathers’ footsteps while reading diaries written when their fathers were prisoners in concentration camps during WWII here in Italy. I’ve accompanied them to sites mentioned in the diaries and heard stories read from worn diaries stained by tears and long years of being hidden and only after their fathers’ deaths were they found. The moving stories of these guests have a special place in my heart and make me feel as part of this big extended group of families. I think this is the most important part of my B&B business. The wonderful feeling of helping others learn about their fathers’ lives. Many of these guests had never met or didn’t remember their fathers who died before they were born or when they were very young. We have all become a family and this is how I like to think of the guests that stay with us and want to share our home with us.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
As I mentioned before, being able to give accommodation and share stories with our guests has been important to me and my family. I started this business against the will of others and showed them that perseverance towards ones’ dreams can make dreams come true. By this, I don’t only mean my dreams but also both my daughters’ dreams. They wanted to go to college in the states and got important scholarships while I made it possible for them to travel back and forth to Italy and the USA and support themselves while in college.
Contact Info:
- Address: Bed and Breakfast Jenny’s Garden
Mary Ann McCoy Via Cividale 290,
33100 Udine, Italy - Website: www.bbjennysgarden.com
- Phone: home: 0039 432 281863 cell: 0039 329 264 0481
- Email: bbjenysgarden@gmail.com
Image Credit:
Mary Ann McCoy
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
