Youth not a barrier for entrepreneur

By JONA ISON • Gazette Staff Writer

Brooke Ashley Boydston doesn't let her young age keep her from pursuing her goals and dreams.  At 24, Boydston has started her own event planning and catering business, The Ashley House, in the Old Canal House on Ohio 104. Since opening in June, she has hosted a wine tasting and, most recently, a Labor Day celebration that attracted many patrons of the Easyriders Rodeo.

"This is a passion of mine. I passed this house all the time and could see so many possibilities," Boydston said.

Boydston, a Chillicothe High School alum, came back to Chillicothe after finishing school at Antonelli College, an institution of visual arts education in Cincinnati, where she studied wedding planning, interior design and event coordinating.

"I'm definitely an entrepreneur, so this was the route to go ...I knew what I wanted and went for it," she said.

The next thing she needed was a head chef. During a conversation with the owners of the Crosskeys Tavern, she discovered their daughter, Kathryn River, had just returned home from finishing a degree in hospitality and culinary arts at Kendall College in Chicago.

"I came back into town and needed to use my degree," River said.

The pair clicked right away. Although both young, they feel they make a complete team because where one of them is weak, the other is strong.

"We're happy to do it. We're young, we're able, we're unattached," River said. "There's always concerns when you're young and inexperienced ... but we're a complete team together."

"Being young is a challenge, but at the same time, it's an exciting opportunity," Boydston added.

So Boydston began putting her education to work, using interior design skills to create "elegance and class" in the home. She stripped the striped wallpaper from the main rooms, painted the walls a merlot and brought in Pam Kellough to transfer her vision of a mural to wrap the walls just above the chair rail.

The mural in the main banquet room depicts a rolling countryside peppered with historic buildings from downtown Chillicothe. Another mural, which Boydston calls the "Miss Ashley" of the house as well as her guardian angel, greets guests at the break in a stairwell.

The kitchen also took a lot of work to bring it up to code for a dining establishment, which put opening off a month. Throughout the process, though, Boydston felt everything coming together perfectly. River cooks according to what the patron wants, but also provides a menu of options for those who are unsure.

The logo for The Ashley House is a dragonfly, Boydston's sign of faith. During her ribbon cutting, Boydston said there were dragonflies all around.

"It was my sign from God to go ... I'm very, very proud of all of this. When you have a dream and passion, you don't let it pass you by," she said.

Although she has done some advertising, Boydston said word of mouth is the main thing that has led her to being mostly booked through Christmas. While wedding receptions and rehearsal dinners are the primary events she has booked, baby showers, private dinners, family reunions and Christmas parties are also in the mix.

However, like the wine tasting and Labor Day events, Boydston also likes to create events for people to attend.

"A lot of events I like to think of myself," she said.

Over the weekend, Boydston's parents, Loretta and Gary, came from Florida to help their daughter pull off what she said was a very successful weekend.

"I'm very proud of her. It's her personality, what she is," Loretta said. "She's very entertaining, very artsy and a good people person."

Gary agreed, saying they have been behind their daughter's dream 100 percent. Loretta helped get the ball rolling on the purchase of the home by finding out who owned it and explaining the plan for the location.

"Together they're young and have great ideas. It's a wonderful thing," Loretta said.

Boydston plans to start offering warm boxed lunches and, in 2009, she hopes to have two upstairs rooms available for overnight stays.

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