Over the last couple weeks, I lost control of an aspect of the works needed to turn a disused Baron’s Estate into a top-notch holiday destination – and I am glad I did.

This is our all-inclusive, small group tour company’s second location in the town Torre de’ Passeri about 150 kilometers east of Rome and 40 kilometers inland from Pescara on the Adriatic Sea.

The aspect I lost control of is the area around the pool. I had a vision, and it’s going to be nothing like that. It’s going to be way better … and, ahem, more expensive.

Like most of the Estate grounds and outbuildings, the area around the pool needed some serious TLC. It had become overgrown with cane, brambles and vines, and branches from several slowly dying large trees were falling during wind storms.

This area not only contains the pool, but it’s also the connection from the parking lot to the entrance of the main Estate building and the bedrooms, dining room, lounge room and terrace. It’s an important multi-functional space.

My idea was to get rid of the dangerous trees, hack back the overgrowth, and toss out a few sun beds, lounge chairs, tables and umbrellas. The guests would walk on the dirt path through the grass the 30 meters from the parking lot to the entrance and across the lawn to get to the pool.

The price tag was about €10,000.

My plan reflected me and my personality perfectly. It was cheap and functional.

But then two main dynamic external influences that help direct my life took over: Italian flare and feminine guidance.

This is basically what happened:

A few weeks ago, I explained my plan to my wife and business partner Lisa Grassi Blais, our operations manager Eva Budaiova, our landscape architect Ferdinando Del Biondo, and our project manager/accountant/advisor-on-all-things-whether-we-ask-for-his-opinion-or-not Francesco Volpe.

They smiled and nodded.

In a week, the trees came down and the clean up started. The next week, I was called to a meeting at the Estate. On my way in, I passed Ferdinando heading out.

Inside sitting with straight faces at the long dining room table were Lisa, Eva, and Francesco. There were papers on the table in front of them. They quickly gathered them into a pile as I approached.

I sat down.

A drawing of the area was produced. Lisa took the lead explaining the curving white crushed gravel pathways, the huge flagstone lounge area on the far side of the pool facing west, the giant wooden gazebo, green sod all around, and a funky area with a fire place and plush seating like you see in beer commercials and nowhere else.

I let her explain the whole thing without asking the price.

Then she pulled out another piece of paper. It was more than €20000 on top of the trees and clean up that had already been done.

I took in a breath, but before I could start Eva chimed in as if they’d rehearsed for days.

“Jake, it’s elegant,” Eva said. “Elegant for our guests. They will love it. We must do it for them.”

She knows me well.

From Day One in 2016 when we opened our first location, Villa d’Abruzzo, my philosophy has been that our guests’ experience is the most important aspect of the business. Anything we can do to make their stay with us more comfortable, relaxing, interesting and special is what we should do. Word of mouth is the number one driver of our business, so an investment in an improved guest experience, is an investment in ourselves.

Eva was gently reminding me of that.

Next came Francesco. In true Italian fashion, he spoke of beauty. He waxed on about the chance to do something with style and vision, not some half-assed pedestrian garbage thing. He said he saw the Estate project as a chance to do something we can be proud of all our lives. To show the world we created a thing of magnificence, fabulousness, incredibleness, greatness, richness and splendor.

He used a dozen more superlatives, but you get the point. He was telling me not to be a chump.

Then Lisa closed hard. She said we don’t have to do it all at once. She said if we put the gazebo and the beer commercial bits off for a year or so and plant grass seed instead of sod, the price comes down to €12000 on top of the trees and clean up. So about €18000 in total instead of €10000.

Lisa and Eva looked at me in silence.

I couldn’t imagine two more customer service and experience orientated people. They think of everything – when does cocktail time start, how close should the side tables be, how many towels, what types of tea offerings do we need, the type of toilet paper, and on and on and on.

Years ago, when I felt a guest was being a bit demanding, Eva set me straight.

“Every guest is precious,” she said. “We do the extra stuff, and they will remember that. Not the wine, the food, the tours. They will remember we cared about them.”

Lisa and Eva sweating over the details; their insistence on unyielding customer service, and then instilling that level of commitment in our dedicated and talented staff has resulted in hundreds of great reviews and thousands of referrals over the years.

If they say we need to do something, we need to do it.

I looked at Francesco leaning back in his chair looking at the ceiling.

Not being a chump is a guiding principle in my life. I’ve gone to great lengths and caused myself quite a bit of stress due to a strict commitment to chump avoidance. I’m 55. I quit my comfy life in North America to move to Italy to open a tourism business. I’m not going to start being a chump now.

“OK,” I said.

Things really got rolling after that. Ferdinando removed stumps and a falling down retaining wall. He flattened the spaces to the south, east and west of the pool and removed a broken-down irrigation system. He roughed in the lounge area and pathways and laid a gravel base. All the while cleaning years of detritus out of the soil.

This week, we picked the lounge area pavers and the pathway borders arrived. It’s really starting to come together.

It’s going to be a beautiful place to relax with a cocktail after a day touring beautiful Abruzzo. Our guests are going to love it. Eva and Lisa are right. It will improve their experience.

It’s way better than what I’d envisioned.

I’m not sure it will live up to Francesco’s amazing, incredible, inspirational, remarkable, fantastic, beautiful, unbelievable, splendid, sumptuous expectations.

But I do know this:

I’m not a chump.

Screw that.

The view down the lane to the parking area. The pool is out of the shot on the right.

The “path” from the entrance to the parking area.

Branches were falling in and around the pool.

The path to the pool. To the left is the lane.

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Change of Plans