Hero Interview for The Perfect Blend by Trish Perry

» Posted on Sep 9, 2010 in Blog | Comments Off on Hero Interview for The Perfect Blend by Trish Perry


This week I’m hosting Sandra Robbins with The Columns of Cottonwood, Trish Perry with The Perfect Blend and Sarah Sundin with A Memory Between Us. If you want to enter the drawings, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (September 12th) evening.

Interview with the hero for The Perfect Blend by Trish Perry:

1. Kendall James, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

I love people. I’m the fairly new owner of The Fox and Hounds Inn, a historic bed and breakfast here in our little town of Middleburg. My business enables me to meet the most fascinating people, either because they’re my neighbors or because they’re clever enough to visit and appreciate the charm of Middleburg. The inn keeps me busy, and it’s an answer to prayer for me. I’ve wanted to do this for years, and when the inn became available, I was only able to buy it thanks to my late grandfather and his generosity.

2. What do you do for fun?

Not only do I have a lot of local friends, because I’ve lived here all of my life, but I enjoy the many social activities offered here in town by various businesses and groups. My friends and I get together when we can for the spring and fall horse races, charity events, the community farmers’ market, and the relaxing outdoor concerts at the phenomenal vineyards throughout Loudoun County. We have excellent, cozy restaurants throughout town. All year long one of my favorite things to do is simply take a drive and enjoy the rolling countryside. We’re only an hour or so outside of Washington, D.C., and everything it offers, so I occasionally take in city life. And I’ve just returned from a trip to Italy with my sommelier/friend, Gus. Fantastic trip. Europe is great.

3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Something just happened that’s prompted my need to contact my ex-fiancée. We haven’t been in touch since she broke off our engagement, and I’m not eager to reopen communication with her. But I’ll do it because there’s no other way to deal with this new problem.

4. What are you afraid of most in life?

Failing at the big decisions. Something that could lead to losing the business. Marrying the wrong person. Failing to be there when my mother and brother need me in some serious fashion. It’s not so much fear as a deep awareness of responsibility.

5. What do you want out of life?

I want my inn to be a lifelong success and I want a healthy marriage and family. I want to know God’s will and follow it.

6. What is the most important thing to you?

Family. My mother and brother and whomever God brings into my life. I hope to have children some day. Family is, ultimately, everything.

7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?

I don’t read much since finishing college, but when I do, I tend to read biographies, mostly about the founding fathers or successful businessmen.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I know I’m pretty assertive, but when it comes to . . . romantic interests, once I’m taken with a woman I can be stifled a bit. Not on a surface level, but on the more serious level. If I sense a woman might have lost interest, I don’t tend to plow through that disinterest to pursue her. I think I could miss out on “the one” if I misread her.

9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

My family owns two black labs, Winston and Clementine (we call them Winnie and Clem). My father always had a soft spot for labs, and my mother bought these two for him a few years before he died. They remain a tie to when Dad was still with us. But I don’t have any pets at my own place. I’m away from home too much to have a pet right now.

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

I’d travel back to the 1720s, right here in Middleburg. That was when my inn was built, and I itch to know more about the people who passed through, way back then, on their way east to the old town of Alexandria or west to the frontier town of Winchester, in the Shenandoah Valley. When I sit in the dining area of my inn and appreciate the thick, stone walls and wood-beamed ceilings, I often imagine traveling colonists taking rest and refreshment here. Even a young surveyor by the name of George Washington passed through here, in the 1740s.