Cottage Keeper

Reassuring donkeys that llamas are not that scary.
Reassuring donkeys that llamas are not that scary.

How did the innkeeper become an innkeeper?

Originally a northern Californian – graduated San Francisco State University with a very diverse degree in Geography and Human Environmental Studies, Faryl Kaye spent the years following college living in various places, such as Bridgewater Corners, Vermont, (near Killington) where she taught cross-country skiing and exercised horses on her days off in the winter.

The summer months brought her back home, to take her yearly position at a Bay Area camp for kids as Head Counselor at Roughing Day Camp.

After traveling across country many times for each of her coastal jobs, she decided on a change and landed in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  She loved the desert, only to find working three jobs, seven days a week left her little free time to explore the beauty of Northern New Mexico.

In a small Toyota Tercel, she packed everything, including her best friend, a 90lb Alsatian pup, and moved to Kansas City where her father lived. Through very random events, as life always works, she found out that a new career was calling. She completed course requirements in Fire Science and EMS and landed a job as a Firefighter, first in Atchison, Kansas, and then in the suburbs of KC in Olathe, Kansas. Most of her time was divided between a jump seat fireman (jargon term “riding backwards”) and in the driver’s seat as a fill in FAO (Fire Apparatus Operator). She loved every minute of it.

10 years later, an injury placed her in the retirement seat. Faced with a big career change, having planned on retiring from the Fire Service at 50, not 35, an internet search revealed Eureka Springs. Post-911 events had also changed her mother’s career path, and they both decided Eureka Springs was the right direction for them.

Her mother, Zoie Kaye, purchased the B&B Inn at Rose Hall a few months before Faryl purchased the Peabody House. Then, as things do in life, the business grew. Lake Lucerne Resort was recovered bit by bit from a foreclosure setting, and as of 2008, the 40 acres were reunited.

After 20 months serving on the Board of the Good Shepherd Humane Society, Faryl saw more opportunity for the stray animals of Northwest Arkansas by serving on the Board of a very progressing organization,  Go East Young Dogs, which places down-on-their-luck dogs and puppies in better lives in the eastern U.S. Faryl has a tendency to collect strays.

Things Faryl loves about Eureka: The friendliest people live in this gorgeous little village.

Things Faryl misses about her previous career: my Fire family – daily living with the best guys on the planet. (Oh, and regular paychecks and health care : )