Meet our Staff: Hospitality Head Ronnie Caison talks bringing comfort to Oak Spring
OSGF
Although OSGF is a private foundation, we have welcomed thousands of guests since starting operations in 2016 for workshops, conferences, residency programs, and other events. Our hospitality team are the behind-the-scenes players that help to ensure they all have a wonderful stay, whether it be for a six-week artist’s residency or a short course on landscape ecology.
From setting up for meals and events, to outfitting our growing array of residential houses and rooms, and the countless other tasks that go into making sure that guests have everything they need, our hospitality team is on the go year-round. With the biggest event OSGF has ever hosted just around the corner, they are looking forward to an especially bustling 2020 - but are well up to the challenge.
In this latest Meet our Staff blogpost, we sat down with Rectortown native Ronnie Caison, OSGF’s Head of Hospitality, to find out what goes into bringing a sense of comfort and home to a special place.
What brought you to Oak Spring?
RC: First of all, I had family working here. They were cooks - my mother and two sisters. Then the head butler that was here, I had worked with him as a teenager at Red Fox Inn, and I was working construction and he saw me in Middleburg one day and asked me would I like to come up, because construction was kind of bottoming out then in the late eighties and early nineties. So, that's how I came - I came up to help him and give him a hand. Mack Gaskin was his name.
You worked as House Manager for Paul and Bunny Mellon prior to Oak Spring becoming a foundation. How has your job here changed since the transition?
RC: Well, it's a lot busier. It's more hands-on in different areas that I normally didn't work in - making beds, things like that. Just more people, and busier than it was with the Mellons, because they were kind of laid back, and they didn't entertain that much, just occasionally on their birthdays. Other than that, it's been great - we're just going with the changes, and it's all new to everyone.
How do guests react when they come to stay on the property?
RC: I think what takes them by surprise is how laid back and quaint everything in the (main) house is. When I first came here I was looking for all this gold and chandeliers, but it's just homey. So they feel comfortable and at home, and they always seem like they enjoy it. Like with the last group came, one lady said, "Wow, I really slept good, it was peaceful and quiet." Where she came from, she said, it was just horns and sirens, but out here it was just tranquil.
What are some challenging parts of your job?
With OSGF Head of Events and Guest Services Angie Ritterpusch.
RC: Being precise - I try to be on time, I'm a timey person, and that's the way it was with the Mellons. Making sure everything is in place, clean, and just making sure that everyone’s comfortable. It's hospitality - if they're comfortable, I'm comfortable, and it makes everybody look good. We've got a good team, a team that's going. (Hospitality Assistant Ana Carniero) and I, we're the floaters, so we're everywhere - if you see a house, we've been there, and if you see a bedroom that's been put together, we've done it, and that's however many houses you count on the property. We get it all done somehow!
Ronnie and Ana setting the table in the dining room of the Main Residence.
Do you have any big events on the docket for 2020?
RC: Well, the (Virginia Historic Garden Week Tour) that's coming up in April, that's the biggest thing that we know of right now - and I don't get too far ahead, and I take it one day at a time or one week at a time. But I do know that's out there, and it will be a big to-do for everybody, so it will be all hands on board that 24th and 25th of April. We're looking forward to it - it'll be a challenge, but it'll be done, and it will be exciting, with 400-500 people a day here.
Do you have any favorite memories from your time working for the Mellons?
RC: (Mrs. Mellon) was funny, you know. Once during a Thanksgiving dinner, her and I were in the dining room, and we were setting the table up, and she said, "Ronnie, go on into the living room, and ask Mr. Mellon about the red wine. And I kind of hesitated, because I knew he always got the red wine (himself). I got halfway from the dining room, and I stopped, and she was looking down the hall. And she said, “Go on,” and I said, “All right.”
I went in there, and (Mr. Mellon) is at the bar fixing a drink, and had about ten guests. He was kind of hard of hearing at the time - I went into the bar and I said, “Mr. Mellon, what are we going to do about the wine?” "WHAT?" he said, real loud, and everybody in the room was like, what's going on over there? "I'll GET IT!"
And I went back into the dining room, and Mrs. Mellon had heard, and she said, "Oh, we got in trouble!" I didn't get in trouble, of course - he knew who had done it!
One of Mrs. Mellon’s favorite recipes from an Oak Spring Garden Cookbook, compiled by Ronnie and Joan Caison.
You’re on the go a lot for your job - what do you like to do when you’re not working?
RC: Spending time with family, grandkids, and fishing. I'm a big car man - I have a couple of old cars that I show, and I've been going about 25 years to a car show in May in Ocean City. I've met a lot of people through the years, and believe it or not, a lot of people from this area . . .it's very enjoyable, so that's my little pastime. And of course, church is a big thing (Mt. Morris Baptist Church in Hume.) It's a small congregation, but there's a lot of knowledge there - we have a lot of elderly people, and we have a minister there who's 106.
You’ve been at Oak Spring for almost 30 years. Is there any work you’ve done here that has stood out to you, or that you’re particularly proud of?
RC: I'm just proud of everything I've ever done here, there's no one thing. I take pride in whatever I do, and I learned this from my father: you go to the job, and whatever you do you always give your best. And when you've finished that day, you know you've done your best, and you feel good. That was the way I was raised. We were a big sports family, and you just did what you had to do - it wasn't, “I'll leave this for that person to do, or that person to do”. . . I'm just kind of proud of whatever I touch my hands on, and make sure it's done right.