Sea Villa: An Uncommon B&B on the Beara Peninsula

Plus ruminations on the importance of genuine hospitality and thoughtfulness

Gerhard, Mary and John

People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

—Maya Angelou

Gerhard and I had an interesting experience this past week that has led me to ponder the concept of hospitality and how it affects travelers’ experiences. According to Oxford Languages, the word can be defined as “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.”

I know the travel industry emphasizes the importance of this concept in general, but in larger hotels “hospitality” often feels a bit forced and insincere. Although friendly staff are certainly better than unfriendly.

In family-run bed and breakfasts, however, the ability of hosts to demonstrate hospitality can make a huge difference to a traveler’s entire holiday experience. It also affects their eagerness to praise a facility to their family and friends and to return again in the future.

I started thinking about this topic because last Sunday Gerhard and I were sitting on the sofa talking about where we would like to travel next in Ireland. Gerhard loves the area around Derrynane Beach, which is located in County Kerry on the southern coast of the Iveragh Peninsula.

Out of curiosity, we looked at the weather forecast and saw that the next four days would be dry and mostly sunny. Although Derrynane is only a 2-hour drive from home, I suggested that we take advantage of the good weather and spend the night there so we would have more time to explore the area.

We started researching places to stay, and the Sea Villa B&B popped up—even though it is on the Beara Peninsula, not on the Iveragh. The area around the B&B looked really interesting, so we suddenly decided to spend two nights there first and then two nights at a B&B near Derrynane.

Almost immediately after booking, I received an email from John Gerard, who owns Sea Villa with his wife, Mary, asking if we would like to eat dinner there Monday night. (I had booked the B&B so quickly that I didn’t even realize they served dinner!) This was a welcome surprise because the area is rural, and it would have been a longish drive to find a restaurant for dinner.

John offered a choice of three first courses, three mains and three desserts, which was lovely.

So Monday morning we packed our suitcases and embarked on our next adventure.

After about 2 1/2 hours, we reached the village of Ardgroom and began driving on a beautiful rural road until we came to a large Sea Villa sign on the right. The house was located on a hillside, and the driveway to it was lined with a lovely green hedge.

View from the covered porch

John was working in the garden when we arrived and immediately walked over to greet us with a warm handshake and a big smile. Mary was hanging up laundry on a line behind the house, and she immediately came over to greet us as well.

She showed us to our room upstairs and then invited us to sit on the covered porch while drinking a welcoming Aperol Spritz in the sunshine.

Gerhard enjoying his Aperol Spritz

Sea Villa has just three bedrooms, and the dining room has just three tables. When we entered it that evening, two of the tables were already filled with guests. Both John and Mary greeted us again, made a point to use our first names, and talked easily with the other guests as well.

Thanks to the welcoming atmosphere that John and Mary had created, the guests in the dining room all began talking with each other and exchanging information about where we were from, what we were doing on the peninsula, and where we were going next. (Two women from Germany were hiking the Beara Way, a British/French couple were visiting different places in Ireland, and Gerhard and I were exploring the northern part of the Beara.)

The beautiful dining room

Dinner began with a delicious zucchini and roasted almond soup that is one of Mary’s specialties. Then Gerhard ate a hamburger and I ate mussels that came from John’s own mussel farm. (He harvests them only on the same day that a guest will eat them.) The bowl of mussels was so huge I couldn’t finish it—and therefore had no room for desert!

After dinner, Gerhard and I headed to our bedroom and discovered that a nightcap of Baileys and Jameson whiskey had magically appeared on the dressing table.

The next morning we headed down to breakfast and again had a wonderful selection of options, all served on beautiful china.

Breakfast with scrambled eggs, salmon, scones, croissants, toast and home-made jam

The next evening, both Gerhard and I skipped the soup and ordered chicken as a main so we would have room for desert! Gerhard ordered a chocolate mousse with Baileys, and I ordered the apple pie that Mary had made that afternoon. Both were delicious.

We learned that John and Mary have owned Sea Villa for 28 years and that they still love hosting guests. Their genuine friendliness and thoughtfulness shine through all their interactions with people, and we truly felt welcome there.

After two nights at Sea Villa and a wonderful time exploring the Beara Peninsula, we left John and Mary with big hugs and smiles and headed to our B&B on the Iveragh Peninsula.

The contrast between the two B&Bs could not have been greater.

There was no sign on the street or on the B&B itself that indicated we were in the right place. We only knew we had the correct house because Gerhard had programmed the Eircode into Google maps. We drove into the driveway and found that the parking lot was confusing. A man from the house next door indicated with a wave of his hand that where we had parked was ok.

He did not greet us or introduce himself, and it was only later that we figured out he and his wife were the owners. A nice young woman—his wife—did greet us with a smile and proudly gave us a tour of the home, which she and her husband and just spent 14 months completely renovating. She did not tell us her name, however, so I still do not know what it was.

On the plus side, our bedroom was lovely, and the king-sized bed was comfortable.

We went downstairs for breakfast the next morning, and she greeted us warmly and asked what we would like to eat. The food was not nearly as good or as varied, however, as in the Sea Villa. A couple sat at another table in the small dining room, but other than saying hello to them when we entered the room, we had no communication with them. It just didn’t feel right.

On the morning that we left, a different woman was cooking breakfast, so we didn’t see the owner. We had already paid for the room, so we just left awkwardly, looking for someone to say goodbye and thank you to and finding no one.

If we had stayed only at the second B&B, the contrast would not have been so strong, and I would not be writing this post—I would be writing about our hikes and explorations of Derrynane and Beara. (Those posts are still to come.)

But—like Maya Angelou so beautifully expresses in the quote at the beginning of this post—people will never forget how you made them feel. And John and Mary’s genuine hospitality made us feel so welcome that I wanted to write a post focused solely on them.

What about you?

Have you experienced hospitality at a hotel or B&B that goes above and beyond the ordinary? Where was it?