SAN MARTIN
– Rose Hernandez’s home in San Martin is a little different than
most – it’s one of the region’s premier bed and breakfasts.
SAN MARTIN – Rose Hernandez’s home in San Martin is a little different than most – it’s one of the region’s premier bed and breakfasts.
Hernandez started the Country Rose Inn in 1988 after looking for a new project in life that would bring her back to the area she loved as a child. Hernandez’s family of 10 children grew up on a farm in Morgan Hill.
“My parents traveled on Monterey Road from Gonzales to the Mission of San Jose to pick apricots, and they kept driving by this ‘fore sale’ sign,” Hernandez said. “This was in 1946, there wasn’t much here then. Gilroy was the larger center.
“They paid $12,600 for 77 acres of frontage land. I remember sitting next to our wood burning stove as a child, reading aloud to my family.”
When Hernandez was in the eighth-grade her family sold the farm and bought lots on the Keith Tract, the first subdivision in Morgan Hill.
Hernandez picked strawberries and prunes as a child, and her first job was at JC Penney in Gilroy.
“It was during the Bracero Program, when Mexican migrant workers came to the area with the blessing of the U.S. government. I was bilingual and could speak to the customers in their language,” Hernandez said. “This was my first job, but Mr. Dillon, the store manger, told me you have to start somewhere, and he gave me the opportunity.”
Hernandez used the money she earned to pay for her own high school education. She had decided to go to Notre Dame High School in San Jose and that led to a degree from San Jose State.
“I always knew I would go to college, and I always knew I wanted to be a teacher,” Hernandez said. “My second-grade teacher, Elena Moreno, inspired me. I liked her so much, and she made feel significant. She treated everybody as if they counted.”
Another influence on Hernandez’s life was Eleanor Evans, her second-grade room mother.
“I was friends with her daughter Pat; the family took me to the San Francisco Zoo for the first time. I remember fancy meals at their home. I remember thinking who were these people in my life … they were intellectuals, they thought outside the box and were socially conscious.”
Hernandez taught in the primary grades and in the Head Start program in Palo Alto and in Milpitas.
“I wanted to be a good teacher, and I was; but in 1987 I was ready for a new project. It had never occurred to me, with my Protestant work ethic, to take a year off,” she said.
Hernandez’s mother was 90 years old, and she wanted to be closer to her. So, she decided to open a bed and breakfast, and the property off of Fitzgerald Avenue in San Martin had potential, she said.
“I’m a romantic at heart, and I like creating pretty places for people,” she said.
Hernandez acknowledges she is a natural nurturer.
“I want my inn to be a place people can really talk to each other; I want them to have a memorable night,” she said.
Throughout the years she has met many interesting people. Film star Debbie Reynolds stayed at her inn in 1993, while doing a benefit for the local hospital. Recently she hosted violin teachers of the Suzuki Method, where her large living room doubled as a practice hall.
“I remember one night I took in two 18 year olds who were stranded. One of the other guests, an accomplished pianist, was playing the grand piano, Chopin. The next morning the girls asked her to play again; we all gathered round to listen to the most beautiful music,” Hernandez said. “I had a young woman from Ecuador stay with me for four months while she was an intern at a local company. She told me how beautiful it was to stay in such a tranquil place. She was afraid to be away from home, but she was never homesick. She told me I had turned from an inn keeper into her friend. It’s moments like these that are inspiring.”
Being an inn keeper takes persistence, hard work and attention to detail. Hernandez often doesn’t have time to take in the views from the windows of the rooms she is setting up for new guests.
“This area, the farmland the mountains, it’s beautiful,” she said. “But without a doubt, what I like best about this business, is meeting people. When I don’t have guests I miss them, they are a part of your life.”
