Chehalem Ridge Bed and Breakfast
OREGON WINE COUNTRY BED AND BREAKFAST
ABOUT OUR OREGON BED AND BREAKFAST
Meet Our Bed and Breakfast Team
Kristin (KRIH-stin), a native Oregonian, grew up in a Coast Guard family which took her from coast to coast. College brought her to Point Loma Nazarene College and a degree in Political Science, which turned out to be not a good career fit for her. After a lot of prayer and personal assessment, she felt called to use her gift of hospitality and moved to Portland to attend Western Culinary Institute where she graduated with honors. Kristin took a position as a pastry chef at Papa Haydn, a restaurant in northwest Portland known for their stunning desserts. She also befriended a nice young man she met at church who thought she was a little wacky and a lot of a dreamer.
Curt grew up in on a farm in small town Iowa and earned his Master’s degree in economics at Iowa State University. He put himself through school working in the university’s IT department and as a manager at Pizza Hut. Shortly after graduation, Curt felt the calling to head west and migrated to Portland where he started working in finance. Curt quickly bought into Kristin’s dream to open a bed and breakfast in wine country and they were married in 2001.
Kristin continued her culinary career in the wedding cake department at Beaverton Bakery where she was inspired to launch a home-based wedding cake business. This proved to be a stepping stone to realizing the creative entrepreneur within her. Curt’s long-term planning was appeased by occasional country drives following “for sale” signs. God led them to a parcel of land in Newberg, OR, with amazing views and a half-finished home in 2005. Kristin and Curt worked with an architect and contractor to build the house that would become Chehalem Ridge Bed and Breakfast and opened for business in August 2007.
Although Curt continues to commute into southwest Portland on weekdays as Principal and co-founder at Variant Investments, he is hands-on when it comes to the Bed and Breakfasts’ technology and landscaping. Apparently, there is some truth to the saying “you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” On the weekends you might find him rooting around in the dirt as he tackles the next landscaping project. Kristin runs the day-to-day operations at the Bed and Breakfast as innkeeper, chef, bookkeeper, maintenance wiz, marketer, and more, though our Assistant Innkeepers are taking on more and more of those roles.
Assistant Innkeeper Ayelet (eye-YEH-let) joined the Chehalem Ridge Bed & Breakfast team in April of 2025 and has been working in the hospitality industry since 2015. She started her career at a recreational cooking school in Los Angeles, where she grew up, before moving to Chicago to attend the University of Chicago. While getting her undergraduate degree in Anthropology, Ayelet was cooking in both high-volume kitchens and later a two-Michelin starred restaurant. After graduation, Ayelet moved to Seattle and fell in love with the Pacific Northwest.
In Seattle, Ayelet spent over three years learning to play with fire at Samara – a restaurant that focused on live-fire cooking and micro-seasonal ingredients. After a brief stint as a personal chef, Ayelet decided to take a leap into the world of bed and breakfasts. To her luck, Chehalem Ridge Bed & Breakfast was looking for a new assistant innkeeper and after visiting the property, Ayelet was hooked! She loves connecting with guests and making their time here at the B&B memorable, which is an easy job when she’s cooking and serving Kristin’s fantastic breakfasts.
In her free time, Ayelet loves flying four-line sports kites whenever the wind is just right. You can catch her at the Washington State International Kite Festival every August in Long Beach, WA. She is also studying Flamenco guitar and hopes that more trips to Spain are in her future. Ayelet is also an amateur aerialist with her apparatus of choice being a sling/hammock.
Assistant Innkeeper Julissa (Joo-LEE-sah) grew up in Oregon, specifically McMinnville. Staying in the area after high school, she went to Chemeketa Community College with to get her business transfer degree. As classes went on, she realized it wasn’t for her, and enrolled in the school’s new paid internship program in hopes that it would help her find her passion. The program placed her at a new Bed and Breakfast in Amity in 2018 where Julissa shadowed the very experienced innkeeper for a few days.
Through the internship she found that the hospitality industry, specifically bed and breakfast, was her passion, staying on in the saff of the B&B and going back to school to get her Lodging Management Certification. Julissa joined Chehalem Ridge B&B in 2023, though she took a short break to have a baby who came 3 months early. She loves that she gets to use her creativity and learn new things every day.
While her free time is currently mostly taken up by motherhood, Julissa also enjoys collecting plants, doing art and DIY projects, and spending time with her extended family – as well as hanging out with her cats.
Head housekeeper Jamie (JAY-mee) grew up in the Willamette Valley, working at a local B&B before moving to Hawai’i for her husband’s job. She joined Chehalem Ridge B&B in 2023. She loves the atmosphere and flexibility that comes with the job. As an avid book lover, being able to listen to audiobooks while cleaning makes if feel not feel like a job at all! Having grown up in the area, she knows all the best hiking spots. Jamie is a true animal lover, being the human to four cats, three dogs (including one German Shepherd puppy), and two snakes.
Candace and Phineas are the inn cats who live nearby with Kristin & Curt, but are never inside the B&B. Phineas is a fun ginger boy who loves belly rubs, climbing, and hunting. Guests will encounter Phineas roaming the B&B grounds and occasionally begging for pets (give in!) and to be let in (don’t give in!). Candace, our grey tiger, isn’t outside as much, but also loves pets. For guests who need to get their kitty-fix, we have treats that you can use to bribe either cat to give you some love. If you know the reference to their names, they both fit their name pretty well.
Remembering Stumpy
Back in 2012, there was a black feral cat out on the path below the house. A lovely guest asked if she could go feed the cat her bacon. Kristin laughed, because feral cats take off at any noise, and said sure. The guest went down to the bottom of the steps, left a small piece of bacon and came back up to the top. The cat came and took the bacon and ran away. This continued till the end of the bacon was all gone and the cat decided to stick around. He left us in 2022.
Chehalem Ridge Guests
Sign up for our newsletter and be the first to know about upcoming events and seasonal specials
