Today we’d like to introduce you to Norris and Luanna Cole.
Hi Norris and Luanna, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
We’re small-town transplants from the Texas Panhandle to the outskirts of Austin. We’ve been happily married for 40 years. We’ve raised three amazing kids and have four just-as-amazing grandkids. In 1994, we purchased our home to raise our kids in the “country”. In 1998, we transformed the property into a premiere wedding venue known as The Plantation House and hosted over a thousand beautiful weddings. After much prayer and discussion, the journey of the Plantation House weddings ended, and the new beginning of the Plantation House Boutique Inn began.
We didn’t want to be your typical Bed and Breakfast( whatever the perception, one might have quilts, antiques, and black kitties roaming about). We wanted ours to be up-to-date on style, comfortable, and well-appointed. Norris always has said, “if you are going to have an experience, why not make it a great one? That is what we have set out to do.
We also knew we loved working side by side for all these years and wanted to continue doing so. We love that our guests sense our “love story,” and we feel like they all walk away with a little of that love through kindness, thoughtfulness, big smiles, and full bellies. Hospitality and hard work have become normal to us, We hope they will always be a part of our lives (hospitality that is ….maybe hard work can lessen a bit when we are too old to push a Dyson or mow the acres )
When you stay with us, you’ll regularly find Norris up early, starting the coffee, maintaining the grounds, always greeting the guests at breakfast, or sitting in a rocker having coffee. And watch out, Luanna (Luey) talks a lot! Norris says he can’t get a word in edge-wise! I welcome most all guests at check-in and will make breakfast and take care of your needs to create a home away from home!
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Our transition to our Inn has been incredibly smooth. That’s not to say there haven’t been challenges, but we are problem solvers. When I have something trying, Norris helps to figure out the best solution and vice versa. It is a true partnership. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and try hard to fill our roles the best we can. We also think having weddings and receptions prepares us to “know people”. With the Inn, we have people from all over the World come for a stay. Our takeaway is that ,we as people ,are all so much more alike than different! We all want to feel special, comfortable and eat yummy food!
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
We have several generations of entrepreneurs on both sides of our families. Norris grew up farming and ranching and experienced great work ethics early in his life. When we were first married, we ran a small cattle operation and quickly decided after a brutal winter that we wanted to live in a warmer climate. We moved to Austin. Shortly after moving, we had an opportunity to become pioneers in the video rental industry by opening up one of the first Video Rental stores in Austin. Luey was able to stay at home with their 3 children during these years. We started looking for a bigger house with a little land and a good school system and found the perfect house., located North East of Austin in a small community, Pflugerville, Texas. It was unique. It had an antebellum-style look and just enough acreage to fill spaciousness. Luey thought that her children would get married someday on the property, but little did she know that others wanted to get married as well.
We knew nothing about weddings except our own. Funny thing about entrepreneurs, they dream it, and it happens. 1998 The Plantation House was established. Over 1000 weddings and receptions were hosted, and 20 yrs of operations. ( and yes, our daughters were married here.)Our oldest daughter and husband also ran the venue for 5 yrs. Floral design also caught my eye, and I became a self-taught wedding florist designer and full service wedding coordinator through Central Texas. As life takes you, we decided to end the wedding business in 2017 quietly. We still get inquiries almost every week for weddings, but that is no longer our direction.
We took some time off to see where the next journey in life would take us. While doing that, we decided to do some renovations to sell our home, but this house has something that few have. It has a soul. Norris always wanted a funky Motel on the interstate, and his thoughts were I could change sheets and clean potties. He would collect the money and issue the keys, ha! He always joked about that, and I always said No. But one night we were talking in the quiet of the house and Norris suggested, why don’t we start a Boutique Inn( bed and breakfast)? Without hesitation, I said Yes!
As we have done with our other businesses, we jumped right on in and then began researching and coming up with the best solutions to achieve the best results. We took six months to verse ourselves in the hotel industry and quickly found a wonderful reservation management company intergraded with most online travel agents, Expedia, booking.com, etc. So with a prayer and a lot of faith…The Plantation House Boutique Inn was created in 2018.Yes, I changes sheets ( Norris does, too) and cleans potties( Norris does not 🙂 We are very proud that this is much more than a place to lay your head down; it’s a place to relax and reprieve. Our guests from all over the World have stories and share their lives with us and we share a little of ourselves as well! They arrive as strangers but leave as family! In a world where anyone can pen comments or give reviews that aren’t so stealer, we have the best guests who have shared their experiences at our Inn with incredible reviews! We are grateful to our guests and blessed to have 5-star ratings and we will continue to try to fulfill that with every guest that walks through our doors. We operate the Inn solely ourselves. It’s truly a labor of love. One of new projects we just completed was renovating a spa like bathroom in The Reid. We also renovated the powder room and I got a new bathroom. (Got to keep the Innkeeper happy too).
What were you like growing up?
Norris and I grew up in small rural towns in the Texas Panhandle. We were both super outgoing! Norris was athletic ( football, basketball) and very active in school and other areas, such as raising and showing quarter horses. I was super active in school, a twirler and competed in many competitions. We meet at Texas Tech University—it was love at first site. Norris was a country boy, and Luey was a city girl, although we grew up 30 mins apart in very small towns. Norris has always been a dreamer and then a doer. I have always been a caregiver and hospitable. (I have been known to talk too much; ask anybody) Norris is a very hard worker, problem solver, and perfectionist. I’m not afraid of hard work either.. I may not have a PhD but I have many accolades behind my name OCD, ADHD, D.U.M.B.
We both love to stay active and try to stay healthy. We love design projects. Whether designing kitchens, bathrooms, or bedroom layouts, we find the most joy in making spaces beautiful. We feel most fulfilled when we are creating and completing projects. We love making rooms outside; landscaping is a big part of our daily routine. Norris has designed most of the acres surrounding the house. He takes care of the 5 acres all by himself. I take care of all the floral pots and flowers surrounding the house. We love going on trips together, eating great foods, sightseeing, hiking, exploring new places, and returning to familiar places. We love most being with our family and loving on our grandchildren. FAMILY is EVERTHING to us. Our absolute favorite thing is just being together!
Fun fact: We are both natural redheads and had all red-headed children…. That’s fun!
Contact Info:
- Website: plantationhouse.us
- Instagram: Plantationhouseboutiqueinn
- Facebook: The Plantation House
