1 ↑ The wallpaper, the quilts and all of the furniture were custom designed for the inn. All 29 rooms have views of the North Atlantic. → At the suggestion of Ilse Crawford, a team of top designers was drawn together to design the furniture. 1. Rocker by Ineke Hans, with cushion developed and knitted by islanders. 2. Bertha by Donna Wilson. 3. Puppy by Nick Herder. 4. Long Bench by Ineke Hans. 5. Eadie by Donna Wilson. 6. Small Stool by Glass Hill. 7. Big Puppy by Nick Herder. 8. Punt Chair by Élaine Fortin. 9. Snake cushion, traditional by The Guild. 10. Chair by Ineke Hans. wind means. We know when it gets rainy in July it’s going to be very bad for bark berries. That kind of knowledge of place is where confidence comes from. But if the world suddenly doesn’t seem to need place anymore and every place is the same and interchangeable, place is commoditized and we’re just another commodity. I think culture grows out of the interaction with place, and so does community. Fogo’s Processes Because we’re a small island, we understand our shared fate pretty well. We came so close to being resettled in the late ’60s. And then when we found a way to stay, it was “Wow. Okay. Dust things off a little bit more carefully tomorrow.” so you would have been part of a generation that went away? I left after high school to attend university. I’m 56, and I have lived in three centuries. Until I was 10, I lived in the 19th century. We had very little contact with the mainland. Very little education. Neither of my parents could read or write. We didn’t get electricity until 1971. Most communities on the island still don’t have running water. I was 10 when the inshore fishery collapsed. You could see huge factory trawlers around the island. It was terrifying. What we saw then was the worst of the 20th century, right at our doorstep. The way Fogo Island held on had everything to do with the National Film Board [Ed. note: the Fogo Island Project, 27 films made in 1967 by the NFB with the islanders’ participation]. That intervention by film brought the community together. It’s a lovely story. It made all the difference. We’re doing a similar thing with an inn to what they did with their cameras. It puts the residents in some kind of relief. Yes. You can get outside so you can see more clearly your predicament, where you are. Many people on the island call what’s happening now “Fogo Process 2” – although we didn’t intend it exactly that way. ArchItecture As hook one of your marketing hooks has to be intriguing architecture. Yes, that’s for sure a part of it. However, the experience from within is really different from how it presents from without. You don’t feel that boldness; it just feels like an intimate, free space. And I think people come back because they want that feeling of being in those spaces. But architecture was always part of your strategy. It was. In di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, he writes: “If you want things to stay the same, things have to change.” We have become so complacent about the loss of rural. It takes something radical to jolt us back into seeing possibilities again. I remember making this conscious decision that whatever we do, it needs to be radical in some way. economIc nutrItIon Why can’t we have a label on absolutely everything we buy called something like Economic Nutrition that tells you where the money goes? So if you spend a dollar, here’s where that dollar went in terms of expenses. In our case, 65 per cent goes into compensation for the staff. And in our normalized business model, 15 per cent will be our surplus, profit that belongs to the community. so you aim for a 15 per cent profit after operating expenses? Yes, but we’re what I would call a properly costed business model. We don’t pay people the least we can; we pay them the most we can. There’s no tipping at the inn, because 15 percent of the top line is how staff get an incentive bonus. FAwlty nArnIA what will take the inn beyond a check mark on a bucket list? The encouraging thing is, we’ve been open a year and a half, and we’ve had 20, maybe 30, guests who have been there twice already. Many are drawn because of all the different seasons, of which Fogo Islanders say we have seven. Musician Alan Doyle calls it Fawlty Narnia. When you go there, you want to come back and see what is happening with the people. The one comment that’s consistent through all of the reviews is “Oh my God. These people are really a different kind of people.” The inn, in some ways, has been 400 years in the making. When you’re inside it, it’s got all of this depth and little threads that hold a lot of things together. I know it’s got really good bones – they’ll age really well. And you’ve built it to last 100 years. Exactly. One of the worlds that drives me crazy is the spa world. I find this idea about giving back to yourself really ridiculous. That’s what’s wrong with the world; we’re giving back to ourselves too much. Nature will do this. Powerful nature like the North Atlantic will especially do this: you’ll be given back to yourself. fogoislandinn. ca The Fogo Island Inn furniture collection is available through Klaus, klausn.com A longer version of this conversation can be found at azuremagazine. com. 68 mar ⁄ apr <strong>2015</strong> azuremagazine.com
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