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| Joy Malinowski |
The year was 2009. It was an August day, and Joy Malinowski found
herself in Thomas, West Virginia, celebrating her 50th
birthday and looking for real estate. Although her best friend, Lisa, had wanted
to take her to other towns, they decided to visit their mutual friend in the Thomas
area and found themselves checking out the local music scene. As they were sitting
on the outdoor patio of the Purple Fiddle, the town’s music venue, Joy looked
at the building next door and saw a “For Sale” sign posted. Joy found herself immediately
drawn to this building, but decided it was best to see everything that Thomas,
and nearby Davis, West Virginia, offered. When she spoke with the realtor, the
realtor said, “I’ll show you everything, but you’re going to end up buying the
Cooper house.”
After viewing most of the listed properties, they arrived at the
building Joy already had in mind, which turned out to be the Cooper house – a
six-bedroom home that was built by Dr. Cooper at the turn of the 20th
century, and had been in the Cooper family for generations. As soon as Joy
walked in, she was immediately drawn to it. “For a brief, fantastical moment, I
had the fantasy that I could have a vacation home,” she said as she recalled
that weekend. At that time, she says she was in semi-retirement mode, and ready
to settle down somewhere. She decided that a “little inn” would be just the
semi-retirement business to open, and within a week or two, she was driving
from her home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back to Thomas to sign the
paperwork to purchase the home. Three years and several renovations later, her
business was ready.
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| The Cooper House |
Before The Cooper House was furnished, Lisa says they
would stay there and throw their sleeping bags on the floor, right on top of
the plush carpeting. Now, Lisa says her favorite room is Canary, Crimson, and
Coal – a room located on the same side as the Purple Fiddle, “so when the
weather’s nice, you can open the window and hear the music.” Joy says that this
room was named in honor of coal miners – canary and coal as a nod to their
work, and crimson as a nod to the coal wars. Joy’s good friend Maggie helped
name one of the other rooms when she saw the 1970’s French provincial tufted
bed and commented that it looked like a duchess in reduced circumstances; The
Duchess in Reduced Circumstances just stuck. Another room, Clare Q., is a
reference to the detective in the novel Lolita,
and Joy says she designed this bedroom after that character as well. The final
room is E’s Portmanteau, with the “E” standing for Elizabeth – Joy’s mother.
Though there were several names thrown around for Joy’s business,
the name that stuck was the name everyone already knew it as – The Cooper
House. The house certainly has its own unique vibe, which seems to blend in
with the artsy, hipster vibe of the whole town of Thomas. Joy says she wants to
draw “a profile of visitor that is buying art, spending money in the town, and
is a steward of the outdoors,” and the feeling of the whole town matches that
profile perfectly. If she had to describe the typical guest at Cooper House,
she feels that they would say, “we’re in our 40s and we left the kids with mom
and dad, or grandma and grandpa, and we have the weekend to ourselves.” The
Cooper House’s location in the heart of Thomas certainly encourages guests to
explore the town and check out the art and music scene.
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| Interior of the Purple Fiddle during a show by The Steel Wheels |
Since her guests are typically interested in checking out music, they
are able to take advantage of the building’s close proximity to the Purple
Fiddle.
Melissa Berube, a guest visiting from nearby Morgantown, West Virginia, had always wanted
to check out the Purple Fiddle, and when she found The Cooper House, she knew
she had to stay. Her favorite part about staying with Joy at The Cooper House
was “how laid back Joy and the environment was,” as well as Joy’s “passion for
keeping the community businesses local.” On the Cooper House website, it’s
noted that although The Cooper House doesn’t serve breakfast, guests are
encouraged to enjoy breakfast at one of the other local eateries (The Flying
Pigs Café or TipTop Coffee) in the town.
Another guest, Naila Bhatri, was first visiting from Washington,
D.C. for the 4th of July weekend in 2015, and has been back to stay
with Joy several times since. She says that what keeps her coming back is that
Joy “just made us feel so welcome and at home, and subsequent visits felt like
we were visiting a friend. Often, we just sit around in the living room,
talking to other guests and neighbors that come by.” Naila also fondly looks
back on that first weekend visit: “One of my favorite memories from our first
visit is watching the 4th of July fireworks. Joy had made a huge pot
of gumbo – she often cooks for her guests and she is an amazing chef! We ate a
bowl of soup, took the blankets she had out for us and a drink to her backyard,
which slopes up. We lay out there, in prime fireworks viewing area and watched
as the fireworks erupted from across the river. It was intimate and everyone
around was friendly and in great spirits. Thomas does 4th of July
well, and being at Joy’s made it even more special.”
It’s very clear that many of the guests see spending time with Joy
as part of the experience of staying at The Cooper House. Former guest Melissa
says “she is a very interesting person and definitely makes the place special.”
Brian Sarfino, Marketing Manager of the Tucker County Convention &
Visitor’s Bureau, says that “Joy brings enthusiasm, drive, and community
involvement to the area.” Joy’s best friend Lisa says that she’s “clever,
creative, funny – she’s just so smart. She just has these visions – and she
just does it.” She also says that watching Joy tend bar is “almost like
poetry.” Lisa also calls Joy the “unofficial mayor” of the town, because “Joy
made it her business to know what’s going on with everyone almost from day
one.” This is reflected in Joy’s knowledge of the area and ability to give
recommendations, as she did with Melissa Berube. Joy says that one of the most
important things she teaches her staff is that they will never answer a
question with, “I don’t know,” unless they’re following the statement with, “…
but let me find out for you.”
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| The Billy Motel |
Many of her staff don’t actually work at The Cooper House, but instead
at Joy’s second business, The Billy Motel. The Billy, named after the road
it’s located on (William Ave.) in nearby Davis, West Virginia, is a mid-century
building with kitschy, mid-century theming. Joy said the building was on the
market forever, and that it “just sat here like an eyesore – the poor little
thing.” She says that one day she was driving by, and the realtor just happened
to be in the parking lot. Joy thought, “I’ll just go and look,” and after
viewing it several times and finding a local investor in the business, she
decided to purchase it.
The Billy opened in July of 2016, and includes a small lounge and
bar area attached to the motel. In comparison to The Cooper House, Joy says her
guests here are generally the “younger crowd that doesn’t have kids,” but that
also “aren’t looking to be catered to. They’re just looking to be outside, and
not looking for a spa situation.” Joy says The Billy really caters to this
younger vibe – the cross-county skiers, those people coming to hike, coming to
see Dolly Sods (a nearby wilderness area), who are coming to see music and buy
artwork, and who enjoy craft beers and specialty cocktails; she calls these
guests “experiencers”. “That’s who we’re going after because that’s who I like
to hang out with,” Joy says. “I’ve really stopped wanting to please all of the
people all of the time, and I really do want to surround myself with nice folks
who are nice to others.”
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| The bar at The Billy, bustling with visitors |
One of Joy’s recent guests at The Billy, Brooke Mishler, came from
Somerset, Pennsylvania, with her brothers on their annual siblings trip. Brooke
says they stayed at The Billy because they were already familiar with Joy from
The Cooper House, and that the website gave the motel a funky vibe. Although Brooke
says she enjoyed the down comforter and pillows as well as the homemade soaps
in the rooms, she says her favorite memory actually involved the bar/lounge.
“My favorite memory was having a signature drink that one of my favorite
singer-songwriters, Leonard Cohen, drank. The bartender was really talented in
drink mixing!” The drink in question is Leonard Cohen’s Red Needle, made with
tequila and cranberry juice, garnished with a lemon, and served over ice – a
special cocktail around the time of Mr. Cohen’s passing. But the lounge doesn’t
only attract visitors from out of town; sometimes Joy gets visitors from Canaan
Valley, which is approximately six miles away, or the local towns of Thomas and
Davis. Joy says sometimes the locals come to bar at The Billy on dates, before
or after their dinner or music experience, and that she enjoys socializing with
people that she otherwise may never meet.
Of course, neither of these businesses would exist without the
expertise of Joy. A West Virginia native, she spent a good portion of her life
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before deciding to relocate to Tucker County.
Although she’s currently a dual-business owner, Joy actually obtained a Fine
Arts degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts – surprisingly unrelated
to business or entrepreneurship. Although she says she never wanted to own her
own hospitality situation, she says that her enjoyment of the hospitality
business makes everything come very easy to her. She says she works 24/7 – “but
not in a martyr-y way” – and that her biggest challenge in her businesses is
finding employees. She says it’s not a lack of quality, but a lack of quantity
that brings this challenge – which also causes her to be creative when looking
at the future.
In the coming years, Joy wants to concentrate on “innovative
food,” but knows that she must also be creative in the execution because of the
lack of staffing. She hopes to travel to other cities, such as Washington,
D.C., and Philadelphia, to research some business models of other innovative
restaurants. She hopes to do something completely different from what’s currently
happening with Tucker County’s food situation, but wants to complement, rather
than compete. As her best friend Lisa says: “Joy has really come into her own.
She’s in control of all of these things. She’s fully integrated into that
community; she’s so big a part of it and she has a great vision, even for the
future.” Whatever she decides to do, it’s clear that Joy is invested into the
success of the community, and will only continue to help it grow and flourish.
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