Ashville hilltop retreat drawing visitors from around the world
Story by Paul South
Photos by Bob Crisp
A picturesque two-story farmhouse nestled against a St. Clair County hillside beckons visitors with a wraparound porch that practically says, “Y’all come.”
Combine that down home feel with culinary masterpieces that include the white tablecloth elegance of eggs Benedict or the salmon or chicken piccata for a wonderful dining experience.
Try the brunch staple Southern comfort of sausage gravy and biscuits, and you get just a bite of the farm to table magic of Corinne Burnham’s Haven on the Hill bed and breakfast and The Crooked Crown Restaurant, all in the same locale on Alabama Highway 23.
But that’s not nearly the whole story of the inn just outside Ashville that has welcomed visitors from across the country and around the world since Burnham rolled out the welcome mat three years ago.
Burnham, a Massachusetts native with more than 30 years of culinary experience, has a story as rich as s steaming bowl of clam chowder from her native New England.
This chef’s kitchen journey began at 14 when she landed a job frosting doughnuts at Adam’s, a local shop in Greenfield, Mass.
“When I was 15, I was old enough to work the counter,” she said. “Then I became a waitress, and I just absolutely loved it. I decided to follow through with the cooking end of things and moved forward in that direction.”
Then came a successful catering business in 1998. She opened her first restaurant in 2003. Rooster’s Bistro in Northfield, Mass.
What attracted her to the demanding, highly competitive restaurant industry?
“I enjoy the adrenaline rush from it.” Burnham said. “I love to create beautiful food and I’ve always had constantly changing seasonal menus in all my restaurants. I like when I look out into the dining room and see all the happy faces. I like the rush of that.”
And she’s seen beaming faces from everywhere. Keep in mind. This is not a typical bed and breakfast. The restaurant is open for dinner on the weekends and also offers box lunches on request.
“I keep a canvas map of the world in an upstairs bathroom,” she said. “It’s really beautiful. I put a pin in the map every time someone visits, you know, from different states and different countries.”
Visitors have come from Ukraine, Australia and across western Europe. It’s a testament to how technology has revolutionized global tourism. On the morning of this interview, her Leibnitaz, Australia guest booked what will be her 12th visit to Haven on the Hill.
“She went to college over here and comes to visit her husband’s family and her college friends. She visits three or four times a year. After her 10th visit, I gave her a T-shirt,” she said.
“I put myself out on social media, Booking.com, Travelocity, and I think that those networks are where I get a lot of my overseas guests.”
Burnham also draws her share of domestic travelers. Every seven weeks, a father and son travel over from Georgia so that the Dad can lunch with his high school classmates.
Her own journey to St. Clair County began in 2015 when her son Kyle joined the Navy, making her an empty nester.
“I had wanted and had always been attracted to living in the South and had done some traveling in the South throughout my life, and I told myself that if the opportunity ever came up … I was definitely going to get myself out of the snow. People here are just so friendly.”
She sees a spark of the Divine in her St. Clair story.
“I put my restaurant up for sale on a Thursday and had a cash offer that following Monday,” Burnham said. “I thought, ‘God’s telling me to do something,’ so I moved to Chattanooga first and became the number one caterer in Chattanooga in the first six months I was there.”
Then she explored Alabama and “fell in love” with Mentone, the closest thing the state has to an alpine village. She opened Plowshares restaurant there. After that, she opened a restaurant in Ft. Payne called 33. Haven on the Hill, her fourth restaurant, opened three and a half years ago.
The idea of a bed and breakfast in Ashville initially met with some skepticism. Burnham started slow as she converted the former private home to what it is today.
“It took about six months to change the carpet and the décor, and I thought I would just continue to cater, and we will see what happens,” she said. “I put a sign at the bottom of the hill, and it was just three or four months, and I was selling out all the rooms upstairs. So I ended up converting my two-car garage into an innkeeper’s suite so I’d have another room to rent out.”
The name for Haven on the Hill came naturally, she recalled.
“You can’t see another property from this property, and it’s on a hill. I just thought it was such a peaceful haven. You sit and listen to the birds. The people I bought the property from have a 200-acre cattle farm and sometimes through the trees you can see the farm animals. It’s really a true haven.”
Over time, as word spread about breakfasts at the inn, Burnham began getting requests for dinners, not just from overnight guests, but from staycationers as well, who would day trip from places like Birmingham and Odenville. A side porch – called The Crooked Crown was opened last November.
Overnight guests are served breakfast in the dining room from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. On weekends, The Crooked Crown opens from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. by reservation only for the general public. Dinner is served Friday and Saturday nights from 5 until 8.
Asked her philosophy of the restaurant business after 35 years in the kitchen, Corinne Burnham put it simply. “Food is my love language.”
She elaborated with a story. One morning, three couples were enjoying breakfast at Haven on the Hill. They began to talk about what their career paths might have been and drew Burnham into the conversation. One woman asked, “What would you have done?”
She instantly responded. It seemed in an instant she was 14 again, gleefully icing doughnuts at Adam’s.
“A chef. I love what I do. I’m extremely passionate about what I do. It brings me so much joy to watch people enjoy the experience that I can create for them; I’m truly blessed that God has given me the ability to do what I have done.”
And she still remembers a lesson from Brad Smith, her boss at the first restaurant where she worked as a waitress. In her early days as a restauranteur, she would call him on Sunday afternoons, exhausted and on the verge of tears.
“Always have faith in yourself,” Smith told her. “And you have to continue to push through and get that last ticket out, regardless of what the situation is. And be kind to yourself, even when times are stressful in a very difficult industry.”
And for customers?
“People don’t want to eat the same thing. You have to keep customers curious about what’s around the next corner.”
And, for new diners who are uncertain of what to order, she has a gentle instruction.
“I’ll make it for you, and if you don’t like it, I’ll make you something else. And I’ve never had to make something else.””
