Horsing around, Italian style
North shore B & B welcomes equine guests

by Christopher Key

Innkeeper Vidette Davoli-Raab has brought a
touch of Italy to her North Shore B & B.

 

Vidette Davoli-Raab is a first generation American who remains close to her Italian roots. When she and her late husband built a house near the north shore of Lake Whatcom, she wanted to bring a little bit of Italy to the project. Actually, she brought quite a lot of Mediterranean flavor to her home.

“I’ve been working on the B & B for five years now,” Davoli-Raab said. “You can’t ride my horses yet because of insurance concerns, but you can bring your own. I have facilities for them and there are great riding trails all over this area.”

Her Italian villa, surrounded by rosebushes and broad expanses of lawn, is ideal for special dinners, weddings and small corporate meetings. The spacious grounds offer plenty of room for temporary shelters, evoking visions of garden parties from Ivory-Merchant movies. It would be hard to imagine a more romantic retreat.

“I think it would be ideal for small concerts,” Davoli-Raab said, “and we’ve actually had classical guitar recitals in the dome.”

Part of the attraction, of course, is the sumptuous Italian cooking. Davoli-Raab’s background includes some four-star establishments.

“My family owned a restaurant in Seattle where I worked,” Davoli-Raab said. “This is a combination of that and my interest in interior design, travel, art and horses.”

Casa Valentina is starting to attract a lot of attention in travel circles.

“I put on a lunch for wedding consultants,” Davoli-Raab said. “I’ve got a Web site and a lot of flyers around. Now, I’m starting to get into some travel books.”

The décor is unlike anything in Whatcom County and maybe in the entire country.

“It’s modeled after an Italian pensione,” Davoli-Raab said. “It’s not exactly what I wanted because no one can do the kind of work here that you can get in Europe.”

Nevertheless, the columned dome and fanciful wrought iron doorways evoke a distinctly old world feeling.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Davoli-Raab. “I do everything myself, taking care of the horses, cleaning, gardening, mowing, cooking. It adds up to about 100 hours a week. I have to go away to relax. If I’m here, I work.”

She bubbles with ideas for events at her B & B.

“There are lots of birds chirping and frogs croaking,” Davoli-Raab said. “We’re just five minutes from the lake. It’s ideal for a peaceful retreat or maybe a writers’ conference.”

Along with the striking décor, Casa Valentina offers such amenities as a hot tub, satellite television, bathrobes and skin care products. Visitors are encouraged to hand pick and design their own floral bouquets as a memento of their stay.

You can almost hear Enrico Caruso rhapsodizing in the background and after one of Davoli-Raab’s fabulous meals, you’ll know what put the smirk on Mona Lisa.

 

Young entrepreneur offers Web hosting
An alternative to fast food, retail

by Christopher Key

Aaron Sims thinks running his own Web hosting
company beats working fast food or retail.

 

Aaron Simms will be sixteen soon and getting his first car. By the time that happens, he should be well able to afford gas and insurance. The honor roll student recently started Affordable Web, drawing on his six years experience in building, configuring and maintaining computers.

“Most computer companies want you to be at least 18 to work for them,” Simms said, “so I started my own. I’ll be entering the Running Start program at Whatcom Community College next fall and this company will look pretty good on my college application.”

It will also help pay for tuition costs. The idea came up at a dinner table discussion and Aaron knew he’d found his niche.

“I want to offer small businesses and individuals an affordable way to have a Web site,” Simms said. “It’s a lot more work than fast food or retail, but it’s something I really enjoy.”

Since Simms’ office is a desk in the family garage, his overhead costs are extremely low.

“I did my best to make our hosting affordable and easy to understand,” Simms said.

Both of those qualities are often missing at Web hosting services.

“To make it even more convenient,” Simms said, “customers have access to their own control panel. They can create and manage their own e-mail accounts and Web site without going through me. It’s a fairly automated system, but I want to make sure there is a high level of customer service. I’ll help people with their tech problems by e-mail or over the phone.”

While the office is in the garage, the servers that provide the actual hosting and e-mail service are in a secure data center with redundant power and Internet connections. Simms doesn’t expect a lot of competition from his age group.

“Most kids don’t have the drive to be entrepreneurs,” Simms said. “They want a secure paycheck without having to put money in up front. I want to be as self-sufficient as I can, not having to rely on someone else.”

Simms notes that his parents are supportive, but not intrusive.

“They’ll point out mistakes I’m making,” he said, “but they won’t fix them for me.”

While his colleagues were using computers to play games, Simms was providing tech support for the computers at school.

“If the business is very successful and has a lot of customers,” Simms said, “I’ll eventually sell it to help pay for college.”

In addition to the other services offered by Affordable Web, Simms can help you choose and register a domain name. The firm offers discounts for six month or one-year commitments, which has the added advantage of avoiding monthly bills.

Among his other accomplishments, Aaron is probably the youngest entrepreneur ever featured in this magazine.

 

New shop is shear nostalgia
Barber opens old-fashioned clip joint

by Christopher Key

There’s an increasingly rare experience awaiting
those who get a haircut from Wally Whaley.

 

There was a time when you didn’t need an appointment to get your ears lowered and it was done by a barber instead of a unisex stylist. It was a place for political debate and discussions about the baseball season. Combs and shears rested in jars of blue Barbicide and there were bottles of something called hair tonic. It was a place where waiting to have your hair cut was part of the fun. Magazines included publications like True and Sports Afield, wherein bold adventurers stalked the mighty grizzly. Not only could you get your hair cut, but you could get a professional shoeshine. The barber’s name was Wally.

Wally Whaley trained at an old-fashioned barber school back when there were still such things. He is proud of being an anachronism. Whaley ran 16 barbershops at Fort Ord and later worked at Fort Lewis. Eventually, he managed the largest barbershop in the state, where his loyal customers included Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, and Dave Niehaus, the voice of the Seattle Mariners.

Now, he has a shop in Everson along with Wally’s Too, which just opened back of the YMCA on Holly Street. It features antique barber chairs and a lot of conversation.

“If I don’t pass these traditions on,” Whaley said, “within ten years they will all be gone. I think a lot of people remember coming to the barber shop with their Dads, who would talk hunting, crops and sports. That’s the atmosphere I’m trying to create.”

The service is old-fashioned, but the shop features a few new twists. There is coffee, tea and hot chocolate for the customers, along with cookies and fresh popcorn. It’s a kid-friendly place with lots of toys and books. Whale is now opening at 7:00 a.m. and adding doughnuts to the list of goodies. He hopes that people who work downtown will stop in before work just to have a cup of joe, read the paper and enjoy some conversation. If they happen to need a haircut, Wally will be happy to oblige.

“African-Americans haven’t had anyone locally who specializes in cutting their hair,” Whaley said. “I’ve cut more African-American hair than anyone in this area.”

He also specializes in flattops, Caesars, military and law enforcement cuts.

“Everybody is in a hurry these days,” Whaley said. “After having a heart attack, I learned hurrying ain’t where it’s at. I don’t care if there’s five people waiting, I’m not going to do a bad job just to hurry. I won’t ever put out a haircut that I wouldn’t like myself.”

That cut includes an old-fashioned lather shave around the ears and neck and a vibrator shoulder massage. You won’t find that kind of service in many shops anymore.

“I can’t compete with the chains on volume,” Whaley said. “The best I can do is 20-25 a day. But if I give a good, full-service haircut and take the time to make friends, I’ll be as busy as I want to be.”

Whaley doesn’t need a computer to remind him how to cut your hair. He can take one look and judge how to do it. It will be tapered and blended to perfection.

“It’s a good location and the rent is right,” Whaley said. “I’ll treat people right and build my clientele. Word of mouth is the best advertising.”

Beauty shops may lease their chairs to contractors, but old-fashioned barber shops don’t.

“Barbers won’t get rich even if they’re busy,” Whaley said. “Even the owner doesn’t make that much. But it’s a steady income that’s about as recession-proof as you can find.”

He’d like to find and train other barbers in the traditional methods so that he can take a break when things get busy. One feature of the shop that hasn’t been seen in Bellingham since the demise of the old bus station is a shoeshine stand. In keeping with the feel of the shop, Whaley managed to secure the old two-chair brass shoeshine stand that used to be a fixture at Frederick and Nelson in Seattle. Now there’s an assistant barber who also shines shoes, just as he did for years at the Federal Building in Seattle.

Completing the Norman Rockwell illustration, Whaley offers a sharpening service for your scissors and knives. You don’t need a speeding starship to enter a time warp; you can walk right into one on Holly Street.