How a family’s decision to buy a Pacific Grove Victorian in the 1970s launched a multi-hotel business.

The Post Family of Pacific Grove never intended to go into the hotel business, but the old Victorian bed-and-breakfast they bought to house their large family had other plans.

It was the early 1970s, and Roger and Sally Post and their four young daughters moved into the two-story Green Gables Inn along Ocean View Boulevard, having originally come from Southern California to P.G. a couple of years earlier. There were five bedrooms upstairs – a perfect fit, especially as the girls were heading into their teen years.

“It was a great house for hide-and-seek. It had lots of nooks and crannies,” says Shelley Post, the second oldest of the sisters.

They left the Green Gables Inn sign up in front of the house – the same one still in use today – which led to couples suddenly bursting through the front door interested in making reservations, Post remembers. The house also came with the same phone number. When the rotary phone on the desk in the living room rang out through the old home – a sound that would send the Post girls running to pick up, hoping to hear a friend’s voice, or maybe a boy’s – sometimes it was someone calling to reserve a room.

City officials approached the Posts to say the inn’s license was set to expire, unless they would consider reopening the B&B, at a time when there were few similar lodging options in town.

“My father was a mortgage banker and a developer – certainly not a hotelier – but here we were, and he was a savvy businessman. He said, ‘Let’s rent out some rooms,’” Shelley Post says. She refers to the move as “tiptoeing into the industry.”

Starting in 1976, the four girls moved into the largest bedroom during tourist season, and the family rented out three other rooms in the home. One year, while she was still in high school, Post ran the inn with a friend for an entire summer while the rest of the family went away on vacation. It was an experience that would eventually lead to a decades-long career in the hotel business.

After a few years, Roger and Sally moved the family out and turned Green Gables into a full-time inn. The fledgling company was named the Four Sisters Inn, after the four daughters. They bought the Gosby House on Lighthouse Avenue in P.G., and then the Cobblestone Inn at Junipero and Eighth in Carmel, now known as The Hideaway.

The company also bought properties in San Francisco and elsewhere in the state. After college, Post managed a few of the company’s local inns, including Green Gables, and eventually became president of the company. The boutique hotel group now has 18 properties throughout California, with more than 300 employees. Locally the company still owns the two original P.G. inns, along with the Coachman’s Inn in Carmel and West Cliff Inn in Santa Cruz, plus several properties in the Napa region.

Post is now easing her way out of the hotel business over the next couple of years. In January, Four Sisters Inns announced that the long-time executive team of Tamara Mims and Joni Costa were buying the company. Mims – who in 2002 started as director of marketing – took over as president, and Costa continued as chief financial officer, having worked her way up from bookkeeper starting in 1987. Post says they’ve worked together so long they’re like family, so in a way it will continue to be a family business. Post now carries the title of “founder,” and will advise the team during the transition.

Asked about how the growth of short-term rentals in recent years, Post acknowledges the challenge to the industry.

“I’ve said to the senior team that it’s a reality that’s going to be with us, so we had best determine what it is that makes us unique,” she says. “I really encourage my team to focus on how we best meet or exceed the expectations of our guests.”

Pampering and spoiling guests, she says, is what sets B&Bs apart. One of the signature elements the Post family started in the late ’70s: always having fresh-baked cookies out for guests.

“Heaven help me if we did not have cookies available when they checked in,” Post remembers. Each inn developed its own signature cookie and Post created a cookbook – the first one was a set of 3-by-5-inch cards tied together with ribbon through hole punches – containing cookie recipes, as well as recipes for breakfast dishes and tea time treats. The cookbook is now in its seventh edition.

She believes it’s those small touches that will keep Four Sisters Inns in business long term.

“That association with memories made, being taken care of, it’s what sets us apart in the hospitality world,” she says.