Tag: Featured

Travel

At the Brown, follow royalty’s footsteps (Hollywood and real) for $900 a night

An occasional look at premium travel from Louisville.

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The gilded lobby.

The historic 93-year-old Brown Hotel, now undergoing a $750,000 event-space addition to its rooftop, has hosted a glittering array of royal guests of all stripes over the years, including:

Presidential: Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, George H. Bush, and Barack Obama.

Hollywood: Elizabeth Taylor (photo, above); plus Robert Young, Joan Crawford, Al Jolson and Victor Mature (who worked briefly there as an elevator operator).

The real deal: Queen Marie of Romania was entertained there in 1926 in the Crystal Ballroom, complete with a gold throne on a dais. And the Duke of Windsor, who scandalously gave up the British throne to marry the America divorcée, Wallis Warfield Simpson.

Where: 335 West Broadway St., at Fourth. How much: the top-of-the-line Muhammad Ali Suite can be yours for $900 a night. Reservations.

Related: For more “staycation” options, Airbnb lists more than 300 homes and apartments in the Louisville area starting at $900 a night. Here’s The New York Times’s Louisville travel page, including this just published update to its “36 Hours in Louisville” guide. Don’t forget the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau, and TripAdvisor’s recommendations.

Plus, a bonus related! All the latest British royals news from Vanity Fair magazine.

Real Estate

Visit this lovely jewel-box home in NuLu on the annual AIA architect’s tour

That photo, top, shows the gorgeous garden at the Gilbert house at 216 Preston St., designed by Louisville architect Jeff Rawlins.

This year’s annual tour showcases eight Louisville homes built or renovated by architects and designers, and chosen by the American Institute of Architects’ Kentucky chapter, according to Broken Sidewalk; the urban planning site has addresses and photographs of all eight.

When: June 11, noon to 6 p.m. How much: Tickets for all eight houses are $15 in advance via Eventbrite or $20 at the door of any of the houses. Proceeds benefit Habitat for Humanity.

The tour also includes the historic Hendon House at 201 Crescent Court; architects for the project were Charles Cash and Mary Herd Jackson. The 1840s house is one of the best of The Courier-Journal’s weekly house features on Saturdays. The exterior:

Hendon House

Jobs

$40,000 to $65,000: job duties that’ll make your head spin faster than a pizza tossed overhead

time-clockBoulevard reports extensively on executive pay at big local employers. But we also look at what folks are making down in the trenches and, in this case, elbow-deep in the dough. We caught this Craigslist help-wanted ad placed yesterday for a clutch of Boston-area Papa John’s restaurants. Because time is money, we’re giving you a condensed job description first, followed by the full monty for those with too much time on their hands.

The job: Papa John’s restaurant general manager.

The duties: Turn a profit. Hire lots of part-time employees every year, because turnover is high at fast-food restaurants. Find new customers, make sure they’re happy, and don’t give them food poisoning. Keep enough dough, tomato sauce, etc., on hand — but don’t waste any, either. Watch the till. And process a mind-numbing amount of paperwork.

What it pays: $40,000 to $65,000, including a potential $15,000 annual bonus. That would work out to $19.23 an hour on the low end and $31.25 on the high end, assuming a 40-hour week all year long. But let’s face it, this job could require twice as many hours, which means those hourly wages would be slashed in half.

And speaking of spinning dough:

Read on for the full text of the recruiting advertisement. Continue reading “$40,000 to $65,000: job duties that’ll make your head spin faster than a pizza tossed overhead” →

Travel

Louisville to London for $7,800 to visit the stately country house made famous by ‘Brideshead Revisited’

An occasional look at premium travel from Louisville.

Boulevard truly enjoys Voice-Tribune columnist Carla Sue Broecker, and not just because of our shared love for exclamation marks!!! Latest reason why: In this week’s just-published issue, Broecker continues her travel journal about a recent holiday in Merry Old England. But what left us right chuffed was her visit to the iconic Castle Howard (photo, top) — better known as the setting for the 1981 British TV series “Brideshead Revisited.”

The 317-year-old country house is in York, 215 miles north of London. Imagine one of Newport’s summer “cottages” — on steroids. The Howard family still lives there, helping finance its upkeep with year-round public tours, starting daily at 10:30 a.m. Adult tickets are $26 at current exchange rates. Buy them online.

So, let’s escape Louisville’s August heat, and pay the Howards a visit!!!!!

When: Aug. 3-10. Airline: United. Route: Louisville to Chicago to London (Heathrow); total travel time is 10 hours 40 minutes, including layover. How much: $5,076 per ticket, first class all the way. United reservations.

Broecker stayed at The Rembrandt in London’s posh Knightsbridge. One of the hotel’s Grand Rooms is available during our travel week for $381 a night, or about $2,700. Reservations. TripAdvisor rates it no. 228 of 1,067 hotels there. As always, Airbnb London apartments are an option, too.

Fans of the 1981 Brideshead series, based on the Evelyn Waugh novel, will also enjoy the excellent 2008 film adaptation starring Emma Thompson and Matthew Goode. Here’s the trailer:

Photo: Wikipedia.

Final Business

Up in smoke: Amid $10,000 funerals, Cave Hill Cemetery cremation rates have soared

Only 10 years ago, just 3% of the internments at storied Cave Hill Cemetery involved cremations. Today, the cemetery estimates the rate has soared to 37%. The statewide rate is lower: 22%, but across the U.S., it’s nearly 47%.

UrnNo wonder. A traditional funeral in the U.S. costs $8,000 to $10,000, with the single-biggest expense being a casket, averaging $2,300 — a pricey item cremation doesn’t require. Urns for ashes, on the other hand, are a lot cheaper, such as the $139.95 one pictured, left.

The cemetery’s more famous permanent residents include KFC founder Harland Sanders.

Related: Read more about Louisville cemeteries, and funeral homes. Much of the state’s funeral industry is regulated by the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors; the board publishes industry laws and regulations, including requirements for inspections and publicly available price lists for caskets and other merchandise, plus services.

Photo, top: the cemetery’s iconic entrance at Broadway and Baxter.

Jobs

$25 per hour: Here’s a job so unusual, it’ll probably leave friends scratching their heads

time-clockBoulevard reports extensively on executive pay at big local employers. But we also look at what folks are making down in the trenches — or, in this case, up in the heads. Here’s a recent ad from Craigslist’s salon/spa/fitness category of Louisville job listings.

The job: head lice removal technician.

The description: Lice Doctors is looking for people who can work part-time, on-call — and away from an office, because you’ll likely treat families in their home or another agreed-upon location. To qualify, you must have experience removing head lice, either professionally or on family and friends; be able to find small nits in hair, and have reliable transportation, a valid driver’s license, and proof of auto insurance. Ideally, you have already worked in healthcare (such as a nurse, home health aide, certified nursing assistant, or phlebotomist); as a hairdresser, and with children.

What the ad doesn’t say seems nearly as important, according to the company’s website: You must be willing to tell people what you do for a living, in a conversation that goes like this:

“You’re a what?!”

“A lice remover.”

” . . . so you pick lice out of people’s hair?”

“Yep.”

“Does it work? Can you really get rid of the lice? Do you clean their whole house or something?”

“It works 100%. I can really get rid of the lice and I don’t do anything with the home because that isn’t necessary. All the focus and energy goes towards the head and hair.”

“Do you use a pesticide or something?”

“No, I use olive oil.”

“Olive oil?!”

“Yep.”

What it pays: $25 per hour, plus travel expenses. (Lice Doctors charges customers $125 for the first hour, then $110 for each additional hour.) At that hourly rate, working 20 hours a week (plus many extra hours after school starts, we imagine), you’d earn $26,000 a year.

Related: Yes, you really can use olive oil to treat lice. Plus, Amazon sells 143 different lice removal kits.