The Howie Carr Radio Network

Meet the Experts: Denis Swords

Meet Denis Swords, an expert in the art of relaxation. Denis has been providing the perfect getaway experience for his guests at the Follansbee Inn in North Sutton, New Hampshire, for over a decade. Join Howie as he learns the ways of serenity through hospitality from the owner, operator, chef, and raconteur of the Follansbee Inn.

Duration:: 22m
Broadcast on:: 03 May 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to another episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car, a new podcast featuring long-form interviews with guests who have a specialized field of expertise. So far, the podcast has featured experts in bettering your physical health, appearance, financial well-being, and more. But what about your state of mind? Today's guest is what you could call an expert in the art of relaxation. He's been providing the perfect getaway experience for his guests for over a decade, offering them serenity through hospitality. Join Howie as he speaks with Dennis Sords, owner, operator, chef, and racon tour at the garlands be in in North Sutton, New Hampshire. And be sure to see for yourself what Howie and Dennis describe as the perfect relaxation spot at follandsbn.com. That's f-o-l-l-a-n-s-b-e-e-n.com. Here's your host of Meet the Experts, Howie Car. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to this week's episode of Meet the Experts. And we have a guest this week, Dennis Sords, who I'm very familiar with. He is the owner and operator of the Collins-Bn in North Sutton, New Hampshire. I've been a guest there. We've had great times there. It's a fantastic four-season place. So we're going to talk about his experiences. He has a rather unique background to be running in a year-round in New Hampshire in the Lakes region. So Dennis Sords, thanks for being here on Meet the Experts. Well, thank you for having me. How does a lawyer from Louisiana end up as an innkeeper in the Lakes region? That's the most common question I get at breakfast. Yes, always ask that. How do you end up here? And I give them the shorter version, but really, it started in kindergarten. We took a family trip to Colorado. We didn't take a lot of big family trips, so this one was very memorable. We rented a cabin. We stayed there for, oh, a week and a half, two weeks. I guess I can't remember how long, but I just fell in love with the mountains. Absolutely loved it. Had the time of my life. So when I went off to college, I went to Colorado. Went to Colorado State. Went there to major in forestry because I wanted to work in the great outdoors. Ended up in wildlife and fisheries. And believe it or not, they weren't lining up to hire wildlife and fisheries graduates. So only money I had was what I made from selling my books. I went back to New Orleans, where I grew up, with the idea of going to graduate school, but going into more biology. But at that time, we were in the oil crisis caused by the Arab embargo. Geologists were in demand, and the University of New Orleans had a program to take people who graduated in a different field to get a master's in geology within three years. So I enrolled in that program. And from that, you could just walk into a really good job with an oil company. And I landed a job with a company in Lafayette, Louisiana. That whole Gulf Coast region was very active 'cause of the oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. I worked there for 10 years. Oil and gas is very fickle, goes up and down. So one of the depressed times, I went to law school forgive me for that, and stayed in Lafayette working for an oil and gas law firm. Became a partner there, and then eventually went to work for one of my clients as an in-house general counsel. But this client was a little oil company, and they were moving to Houston. And I happened to be up in New Hampshire at this time, visiting my brother. My brother married a really wonderful woman from Vermont, and he had lived in the lakes region for years. So I was on vacation, visiting them, staying in a rented house on Lake Sonopee, and just loved it. It was just beautiful. I was back in the mountains, loved the area, and started thinking, "I would love to live here, but how would I do it?" I mean, who needs an oil and gas lawyer in New Hampshire? So I just happened to see an in and thought, "Well, I could buy an in, I could be Bob Newhart." So I went home and looked online and found an end to buy. And so I just decided that in my former life, I lived where the job took me. The job said, "Well, you're gonna live in Lafayette, Louisiana, which was a fine place to live, but it wasn't where I wanted." And I decided this time I'm gonna live where I wanna live and find a way to make a living, find a way to make that work. And that's how I got to the phones be. - How long ago was that? - 12 years. - 12 years you've been there, and you just came in cold. You know, a lot of us have had experience working in hotels or restaurants when we were kids. You never had that. - The closest thing was I had worked at a restaurant as a bus boy, salad boy, dishwasher. Started there as a dishwasher. So that was some summers, but no experience, no idea how to run a business. You know, I learned how to form a business and what a corporation was in law school, but I never took a business class in my life. So I really didn't know what I was getting into as far as running a business. - So the fall and speed is in North Sutton, New Hampshire. What's its history? How old is the fall and speed? - The end was built in 1840. Originally it was used as a boarding house. - Who was living there? What, I mean, did they work in lumber? - The man who built it was, last name was Sargent, and Follensby bought it from Sargent in latter part of the 19th century. So I'm not sure what Sargent did. Follensby had a farm, a very large farm in that area. He owned a lot of the land in that area. His wife would run the inn. So it was essentially a farm to table inn back then. - The name Follensby comes from the man who originally made it into an inn. And I'm the 12th owner in succession after him, but everybody has maintained that same name. - Have there been any historical guests of interest? - One that you'll like, you'll like this is, remember Bernhard Goetz. - Really? Bernhard Goetz? - After the New York subway shooter? - After he defended his life, self-defense, he escaped to Follensby Inn. Now, this is what a prior owner told me. So I've never seen-- - This is when he was on the lamb? - When he was on the lamb, he was at Follensby. And there was a payphone downstairs at Follensby and evidently he would spend hours on the payphone, obviously talking to his lawyers. And, you know, if you do read the accounts of him, he did surrender to New Hampshire police at one point. So we had Bernhard Goetz there, and this is nothing to do with the inn, but when Gis Lane was discovered, she was-- - Maxwell. - Right, she was found in Bradford, which is a next town south of Sutton. So we had two high-profile escapees hiding in our area. - What changes did you make to the inn when you took it over, when you bought it? - So as a functioning inn, it's been a functioning inn since Follensby converted it from a boarding house to an inn. And I've upgraded it. It was more of a rustic country inn. So I've spent my efforts upgrading it as far as bringing in much nicer furniture, bringing in nicer art. I renovate rooms one by one. I've done two this year, and I'm currently working on a room renovating it. And when I renovate rooms, I essentially end up re-plastering 80% of the walls and ceiling. - And one thing I like about it is, you know, you think of old-style New England inns, and you think of the bathroom at the end of the hall, but that's not the case at the Follensby Inn. - No, every room has a bathroom. I want to make that very clear to people, too. That's important, I think, to people. And it's always been that way since you owned it. - Since I owned it, the people I bought it from finished putting in the last few rooms that did not have a bathroom. I have an inn with 17 rooms and 22 toilets. - What do you most enjoy about being an innkeeper? - I enjoy the freedom it gives me to be creative. I do the cooking, and I love to create new meals. I come up with new ideas and try new ideas. I just made honey buns. I tried recipes I read, and I just did not like them, so I made my own. - You could've tested them out with us, you know. - Well, they were all eaten, now what brought you so? So I love that creativity, and the creativity with the inn itself, the taking the rooms and making them just show peace rooms, much nicer rooms, and taking the inn itself and improving it and making it something that people love to come visit and see. - And then the entertainment at night, too, just sort of everybody hanging out, like the old days. - Yes, in an inn, when people would get off the train. - Well, the train, exactly, yes. Yes, and they would come and they would stay for the entire summer, mom and the kids, and dad would come up from Boston on the train and visit on the weekends. But yes, they do love the fact that people sit around and converse or play games. - Tell us about the area around North Sutton. I mean, it's just great. You can walk the keys on our leg, and that's a great thing, but all the birds on the leg. - Tell us what's available for hanging out for day or weekend. - I chose to be in for a couple of reasons. One of them is it's large enough to support you, and it's not a two-bedroom-- - Bed and breakfast. - Bed and breakfast, yeah, that you do in retirement 'cause I needed something more than that. But mainly because of its location, it is on Keysor Lake. A lot of inns say they're a lake inn, which means they have access to a lake. Well, we have our own private dock, so we are on the lake with our private dock. We have canoes and kayaks for the guests to use. We have stand-up paddle boards. We have a sailboat/roboat that's been in dry dock for a couple of years, but my brother and I are just finishing it up and it'll be back out there this year. It's a beautiful little 16-foot swamp cat dory. So being on the lake, I just love that setting when I realized where it was. But beyond that is we are three miles south of New London, and we're just north of Warner, which are two quintessential New England towns. Towns that have no box stores. They have old-fashioned bookstores, beautiful bookstores. They have coffee houses. They have good restaurants, so that's right there. And just this entire area, we have several mountains in the area, so it's a beautiful scenery. And it's a part of New Hampshire that is relatively undiscovered as compared to Winnipasaki or those areas that are full of tourists and touristy stuff. We're still New England, even though we're only 90 minutes away from Boston. Tell us about the, I've become a big bird guy. You get a lot of birds on that lake. A lot of birds, yes. What kind of birds you got? Well, of course we have looms, we have a pair of mating looms on the lake every year, and they're back this year. We have bald eagles on the lake at our feeder this year for the first time. We have a pair of blue birds who've been showing up. Wow. And at the feeder, I also get Orioles, Baltimore Orioles every year. They haven't come back yet, but we get herons on the lake, red belly woodpeckers around. We get all kinds of woodpeckers. I see the red belly a lot 'cause he actually comes to the feeder. They're pretty brazen. Yes. Those woodpeckers. You know, in the winter, you're close to skiing areas too. And in the fall, you have amazing foliage. It is a four season resort. It is, we're 12 miles from Sunnapee Mountain and from Ragged Mountain. Sunnapee is the well known ski area that people from Boston love. But Ragged is a really nice ski area as well, and we're equally distanced from Ragged. And we also have Pat's Peak, just south of us. It's a smaller mountain, but they offer night skiing and tubing. So people who wanna do that. So that's in the winter. And in the winter, the lake freezes over. You can walk out on the lake. You can cross country ski on the lake. You can ice skate on the lake. We have an 18th century historic farm up the road from the end. Mustard Field Farm. It's a working farm, but they have all the historic buildings. They come down and they harvest the ice on. Keys are lake in the winter, which is a lot of fun to watch that. I've never seen that. Oh, it's fun. It's quite a process. And they get the whole town involved. Everybody's there helping. Yeah, and I assume you had a lot of maple trees too, right? That's part of the whole process of going from winter into spring, right? Oh, absolutely, yes. Of course, we just got past the maple harvesting season. And that's fun 'cause there's a couple of weekends there where you can visit all the little sugar houses in the area. Every time of the year, there's something different to be doing in the North Sutton, New Hampshire and the lakes region. Absolutely. And really right outside of our door, the small country road that we live on is a three mile loop around the lake. It's just a beautiful walk. We did it when we were staying there and it was just so beautiful in the morning just to walk and hang out at that lake. At night, you know, when people come in, you have like a little spread, hors d'oeuvres and that kind of thing and drinks and everything. But what the Follens Bien is really famous for, I think is breakfast. You have a new bride, Kendall, and she helps you out now. Tell us what's available. And I think people that haven't been to the Follens Bien, they're not gonna understand until they go there just how great the breakfast is. Tell us about it. The guests do love the breakfast. Like I said, I try to be creative. I'm always coming up with new ideas, but some of the standbys are the corn beef hash. It's a great hash. I corn my own beef. So I buy a brisket and I put it in the corning mixture that I make for a week and then take it out and slow cook it for several hours. And that's the basis of the corn beef hash. I could attest to that. How great is this? The guest favorite, I would have to say, are the angel biscuits. That's something I came up with a few years ago and worked on it for quite a while, but guests really love the angel biscuits and describe them as a mix between a biscuit and a croissant. Like I said, just recently made the honey bones and make beignets from time to time. I have a couple who come up from Connecticut all the time and they were here recently and I made a new dish for them, which I call breakfast jambalaya. So it's based on a Cajun dish, a jambalaya, but instead of chicken and sausage, I did bacon and sausage and changed it up a little bit to make it more breakfasty and topped it with a swirl egg, which is just a fancy scrambled egg. And the wife who has become a good friend said it's her favorite meal by far. So she loved that meal. - So you can get the breakfast jambalaya if you go up there now. If you make it to order or is that just on the menu? - On the menu, yes, yes, yes. - Yeah, we do the main dish in several sides and we'll always have a homemade granola ready for guests as well and fresh squeezed orange juice and apple cider. If we haven't had people who have special dietary requirements, Kendall will take care of that. And she's very talented, she really, she's a great-- - When I was up there too, you made me something very special which was a tapioca pudding and I really appreciate it. My only regret is I didn't just take the whole thing with me when I left. The food is just so outstanding. It's quiet too. So you have 17 rooms available now. Are there differences in the rooms or are they all pretty much the same? - Oh no, every room is absolutely unique. There's a variety, not only way they're decorated but as the way they're laid out. So we have suites that have a suite area, some have a sitting area in the suite, some have an extra bed in the suite. - So if you had a kid, - If you had a kid. - Probably one kid or could you bring up two kids? - You could, we have one room that's made for two kids. It's two connected rooms actually, one with a queen bed, the other with two twins. So that's where families frequently go. - So it's not just a couple's place. You can bring a kid or two kids. If you opted to fall and be in, wait, do most people come up for one night or two nights? - Mostly two nights, some will stay 10 nights but mostly two or three really. But when they say longer than that, 10 nights, it's a challenge for me 'cause I try to give 'em something different every day for breakfast. So I have to. - I don't think that would be a problem for me. You could just keep bringing the same stuff and I think most people wouldn't care that much about it and you also have chicory coffee too. I mean, so you have these little touches of New Orleans or the South in addition to the main menu. - Right, if somebody wants chicory coffee, they can ask for that, yes. Our regular coffee that we put out for the guests is made by a very talented coffee roaster in Concord. So it's a local coffee and it's really good. - Everything is totally local and as you say, this is not like Southern New Hampshire, the Pheasant Lane Mall or Nash or even Seacoast New Hampshire. This is going up and a lot of people aren't used to going further up in New Hampshire, but it's different, it's all New England. - It is, absolutely, yeah, and it's like I say, I mean, it's closer than the Winnipasaki areas, all those areas and it's not a touristy area. But it is the Lakes region. We have mountains and lakes and just absolutely gorgeous scenery. It's beautiful, I'm awed by it every day. - And I assume at Christmas too, everything is you got it all lit up and everything. - We do, yes, we try to change for the seasons. - Whenever you want to go to the fall and spin, you're going to get a different experience from season to season and you're open year round so there's no downtime like the old style ends further north. - Right, we are. People do love to sit around in our common area and chat and talk and we do have a bar, but it's a self-serve bar. We don't have a license so you can bring in your own adult beverages and your own wine, beer, alcohol, whatever you'd like, which people really appreciate. - It's just a very pleasant experience and it's a great getaway and I mean, I'm sure most of your customers now are just regulars, aren't they? - We have a large percentage of them are regulars, yes. And a lot of them through the Howie Car Show, so that's been wonderful for us. They're great guests 'cause I can talk to them about whatever. I don't have to watch my opinions. The Follens BN and you're open year round, how do people get in touch with you, with the Follens BN, Dennis Sorts? - They can call me, call the N603-927-4221, or they can go to our website. That's FollensBN.com. F as in Frank, O-L-L-A-N as in Nancy. S-B as in boy, E-E. FollensBN, I-N-N.com. - And it's in North Sutton, New Hampshire. Now, have you ever thought about doing a cookbook? - I'm working on it. Yes, ask me that all the time. Yes, really would like one. And so I'm working on it, but it's coming along slowly. Now Kendall is very good at creativity and writing, so I think she'll help me and we'll come out with a cookbook. - Now, what is Kendall added to the mix in terms of food? - Kendall, in terms of food, she takes care of the daily grind coffee, the homemade granola, but she also does side things for people who have dietary restrictions, so she's been very good with that, and she's just helped me so much with that. She's also added creativity to the end. We've started doing house concerts, and that's all Kendall's idea. - House concerts, explain that to me. - So we'll get local artists to come in and perform for an hour and a half. Ideas do maybe one a month in the off season. We won't do it during the summer 'cause there's so many free venues in the area, but we can fit 50 or 60 people who come in, plus the guests. So far, they've just loved it. Absolutely loved it 'cause it's very intimate. The performer is right there. The sound is great. They can see him and hear him, and it's just very comfortable setting, so that's been a great addition, and that's all Kendall's idea. - What is the best time to reserve a room? I mean, obviously the weekends are full, but how about the weekdays? Do you have a lower price on the weekdays? - We do, especially in the big season, the weekends are a little more, and the weekends are a two night minimum from June through leaf peeping. So weekdays, there's almost always a room available weekdays, and there are still many weekends with openings. A lot of rooms fill up the last couple of weeks before the time, so it depends on what's going on in the area. Like we had the New Hampshire Craftsman's Fair in August, first two weeks of August, and that's a huge deal. So we tend to fill up during that time, so if you want rooms at that time, you need to get on it. - But otherwise, there's rooms available in the summer. - Yes. - Okay, well so anyway, thank you very much. Dennis Sords, the innkeeper from the Follensby Inn. Why don't you give us the address and the phone number one more time for people to go to if they want to make reservations? The website is follensbyin.com, and that's f-o-l-l-a-n-s-b-e-e-i-n-n.com. Follensbyin.com, phone number 603-927-4221. - It's a great place, I look forward to getting back there. Everybody we know has ever been there, has just really, really loved it. And you know, we're glad you're gonna keep the inn going, and I'm glad you're not gonna be going into law practice in New Hampshire. But anyway, thank you very much, Dennis Sords, for being with us, and next time you're here, bring down some corn beef hash and some biscuits. - Okay. - We would love that. Those are my favorites. I'm sure the breakfast jambalaya is great too, but I love corn beef hash and biscuits. All right, Dennis Sords, thank you very much for being with us this week on Meet the Experts. - Thank you, Harry. - Thanks for joining us on this episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car. We'll be back soon, with even more interesting guests, you're sure to learn a great deal from. (upbeat music) (dramatic music) [BLANK_AUDIO]