Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | winter 2006

WINTER 2006
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Cover Story:
>>Be our guest

• Decorating with Style
• This restaurant life
• What's for dinner?
• Home cooking
• Bed and breakfast on an Iowa farm
• The elegant little inn by the river
• Lunch rush

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Good food, great service

Feature Story:
A shattered past

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Clark and Lauren Smith : Decorating with style

If the old adage about too many cooks spoiling the broth can be applied to "too many designers spoil the house," well, it simply isn't true.

As many as 14 designers created the stunning, original interiors of Clark and Lauren (Kernan) Smith's 6,100-square-foot Tudor-style home at 4507 Grand Avenue in Des Moines. The designers were commissioned by the Des Moines Symphony Alliance to transform the Smiths' then-apartment building into its 1999 designer showhouse: the Butler House on Grand bed and breakfast.

The Butler House is one of only two B&Bs in the city of Des Moines. The Smiths purchased the house, built in 1923, in 1996 after searching for four years for the perfect home to convert to a B&B.

"We were looking for a big old mansion that had been turned into apartments," Lauren explained. "We got phenomenal advice [from a B&B owner in Austin, Texas] to look for a property that had been turned into apartments, because the plumbing is already there" and the zoning regulations would be favorable.

The Butler house had been a private home until 1961. The Smiths purchased the home and maintained it as an apartment building for three years while they planned for the transformation that would begin in 1999.

Today, the Butler House is a thriving bed and breakfast business -- the Smiths have had guests from each of the 50 states and from every continent except Antarctica -- and has been featured in Better Homes and Gardens and on the cover of Paint Decor magazine. In 2003, the Butler House was chosen as one of the most romantic B&Bs in North America.

Each of the guest rooms is unique: from the bright, whimsical Cook's Quarters to the cozy, country-lodge feel of The Retreat to the spacious, luxurious Butler's Master Suite that features artwork by Iowa-owned Sticks, Inc.

"Clark and I agreed that we really did not care how eclectic and how different the bedrooms were," Lauren said. "What mattered to us was that the main floor was all on the same color pallette and that it all flowed. Luckily for us, we were working with the most amazing people...and it totally clicked."

In the early start-up years, the Smiths continued to work full time and raise a family while operating the inn. Clark ('84 public service & administration in agriculture) was in economic development for a local utility company, and Lauren ('85 finance) worked in the financial services industry. Their older daughter, Darby, now 11, was very young when they opened the B&B, and younger daughter, Brigid, now 4, was born into the business.

"Brigid came home from the hospital, and we checked in a houseful of guests," Lauren said. "We served breakfast the next morning...there was no maternity leave, and that's OK. Brigid has grown up here."

These days, Lauren runs the Butler House full time; Clark continues to do economic development consulting during the week and works at the Butler House on the weekends. The couple has embraced the lifestyle and everything that goes with it: They serve on the board of the state B&B association; they were named Innkeepers of the Year by the Iowa Lodging Association; and they see themselves and their business as an integral partner in attracting tourists to Des Moines and to the state of Iowa.

"We know every town and every county in Iowa," Clark said. "We're here to sell Iowa, and that's what we enjoy doing."

Read on | This restaurant life