The year was 1965. It was a beautiful summer day when my good friend Joe Gallagher stopped in my office. He was a first class real estate broker in Ithaca, and from time to time he would drop by and tell me about a new listing he had acquired and ask if I had any clients that might be interested in buying the property. On this particular occasion, he suggested that I personally take a look at his new listing. He said it was a farm located a couple of miles outside the city.

It seemed like a good excuse to get out of the office for an hour on a beautiful summer day. So, off we went.

It turned out to be the sixty acre Miller farm on Danby Road, and before I stepped out of the car I saw development possibilities.

We walked the land and by the time we finished inspecting the one hundred year old farmhouse and working barn, I was hooked. When he dropped me back off at my office, I told Joe I would buy it. Within an hour he called me back. "Hey Farmer Wiggins," he laughed. "You got a deal."

Then I realized I could be in big trouble. I had just agreed to buy the property without discussing it with Joyce, my wife for more than twenty-five years at that time. When I came home after viewing the property, I told Joyce that there was a farm for sale that I wanted her to see.

"Why?" she asked.

"Joe Gallagher says it could be a good investment," I said.

I could tell she loved it by the way she smiled when I showed her the old yellow barn and the spot where she could plant a vegetable garden.

"So, what's the plan, Dreamer?" she asked. "How are you going to pay for it? We've only got about a $1,200.00 in our savings account."

"I'm going to create a subdivision and build houses," I replied. With Ithaca College just down the road, it's bound to be a winner."

She gave me a castor oil look. "You can't do that," she said.

"Because we can't destroy this beautiful farm," she answered.

I agreed that it would be a shame to break up the farm, and she agreed that we couldn't afford to buy it unless we found a way to pay off the property's twenty-year mortgage. So we compromised. How else does any couple stay happily married?

Finally, we decided that we would build and sell one house on a one acre lot each year for twenty years and pay off the mortgage with the profits from the sales of each home.

Woe is me. By the time we completed construction of the first house in 1968, there was a glut in the housing market, and we couldn't find a buyer who would pay more than the cost of construction. THERE WAS NO PROFIT TO PAY TOWARDS THE MORTGAGE!

(The original house can be seen when you leave the hotel and head north into Ithaca. It's the first house on your left. The buyer even ended up getting the one acre plot of land for free).

We were gasping for financial breath when a young friend, Etienne Merle visited us. Etienne Merle was a Cornell Hotel School graduate and had returned to Ithaca with his dream of operating his own restaurant in town.

We looked around town to see what might be available. Nothing came up, but then we came up with the idea of turning our farmhouse into a French country restaurant.

So, L'Auberge du Cochon Rouge, translation: The Inn of the Red Pig, opened in 1970.

Before all of this was going on we had built a small hotel in 1969 on the Island of Aruba, twenty miles off the coast of Venezuela. We named it Divi Divi Beach Hotel, and it became the first of eleven Divi Resort hotels we developed in the Caribbean.

In 1972, the mayor of the City of Ithaca suggested that Ithaca needed a downtown hotel, and under Ithaca’s Urban Renewal program there was land available for a hotel, if I was interested. I was. I invited a group of friends to join me to build and operated what is now the Holiday Inn near the Ithaca Commons.

While we were operating this hotel, my wife, Joyce, and I had occasion to travel on personal business to Pennsylvania, but there were only motels and chain hotels in the area we were visiting, neither of which appealed to us. We started thinking maybe some visitors to Ithaca might feel the same way, and decided to build a boutique Country Inn to complement our downtown Ithaca hotel.

In 1986, LA TOURELLE, a 35 room Country Inn was born.

Over the last 25 years our family has divested itself of all of our hotels, with the exception of La Tourelle. In 2005 we added the west wing, with twenty new guest rooms and August Moon Spa on the ground level. It was then we became La Tourelle Resort and Spa.

In 1991, Leslie Leonard joined us as Resident Manager, and has remained a member of the La Tourelle family, through thick and thin, ever since. Leslie and her husband Tim live at the resort, and you'll find their daughter Ashley at the front desk.

In 1994 we suffered through a fire at L'Auberge that gutted the kitchen and damaged the dining rooms. That same year Michael Kelly, an experienced, Prime Steakhouse owner and operator from Roslyn, Long Island, became our restaurant partner. With his help we restored, renovated and opened the John Thomas Steakhouse, named after my father John Thomas Wiggins.

In 2006, La Tourelle Catering was organized under the leadership of our catering partner Jack Applegarth.

In 2008 we built the Yellow Barn Suite, a three bedroom hotel suite located in our historic yellow barn. Also contained in our yellow barn are our maintenance department, our resort offices, storage, and two long term rental apartments.

In 2009, we partnered with South African-born Samantha Izzo, who created and operates Simply Red Bistro at Sheldrake Point Winery. With Samantha, we opened Simply Red Bistro at La Tourelle in February 2009.

THE END
From all of us here at La Tourelle, we hope you enjoy your visit and look forward to seeing you again the next time you pass this way.

Wally Wiggins
Walter J. Wiggins is our owner and the head of the Wiggins family. A lawyer and hotelier by trade, one of his many hobbies includes writing as you can see from this short story. He has published two books as of yet and you will find a copy of Willow Run; a collection of short stories in our lobby or your guest room.