This story was captured in late 2019. Since Covid-19 upended the tourism industry in 2020, Maureen and Stock the House have found new ways to support local businesses, keep teammates employed, and foster meaningful relationships with their clients. Read Next: Local as it Gets, Part II: Stock the House, Stock the Community >
Vermont maple syrup runs in Maureen McLoughlin’s veins. When she travels, she always brings local products with her as gifts, often a block of Cabot cheddar cheese and a quart of maple syrup from her friend’s sugaring business, Comeau Family Sugarhouse. “I was born and raised here, and I love the state,” she said.
Maureen is as a concierge and ambassador for Stock the House, a provider of luxury on-demand concierge services for vacationers in Vermont, New Jersey, New York’s Adirondacks, and soon the Cape Cod area. Most of her clients are families visiting Stowe and the northern region of the state for a ski trip or summer vacation, nearly all of whom stay in vacation homes. She takes care of things for them like scheduling activities, purchasing and delivering groceries, coordinating special occasions, and other requests. Throughout all of her work, she incorporates experiences they can have only in Vermont.
The job is an ideal fit for the 61-year-old retiree whose 40-year career spanned nearly every sector of the travel and hospitality industries, from airlines to hotels to meeting and conference planning. She began looking for an opportunity last year after losing her 15-year-old dog, Bosley. She knew she wanted to be part-time and set her own hours so she could adopt a new puppy. “I like working. It gives me purpose,” she said. “But I want flexibility, so this job is just so perfect for me.”
The sky is the limit for what Stock the House concierges can do for their clients (so long as they have a few weeks’ notice to coordinate everything and track down hard-to-find items.) “What I love about the concierge piece is it’s constantly changing,” Maureen said. “Every single client is different.”
She loves finding out why her clients are visiting and not just filling their basic requirements but also offering personalized recommendations for things they didn’t think of, such as having dinner ready for them after a long day of travel, so they don’t have to go out or cook.
And it’s not just the planning. Maureen’s new puppy, Ellie, a Bernese Mountain Dog – Poodle mix will soon join her on her drives up to an hour and a half away to get clients’ homes ready for their arrival. She personally stocks fridges, assists in on-site activities, and leaves special gifts as a surprise, always dedicated to infusing local flavor and a deeper travel experience at every step.
She’s also happy to help clients when they aren’t on vacation but want a taste of Vermont at home. She once stood in line in 8-degree weather for an hour to get a limited release of Heady Topper, a highly coveted beer by The Alchemist, for a client.
“One thing I really love about this job is that I’m allowed to be creative,” she said. One of her most recent creations is an in-home microbrewery tour in which a beer connoisseur comes to the home with up to 20 local brews for a tasting and insight on the history and brewing of each. Within days of creating the package, she had one booked and another in the works. Another special project is to create build-a-snowman kits with scarves and hats from local thrift shops for kids visiting in the winter.
Local Expertise as a Service
Stock the House co-founder Domenica Mastroianni appreciates Maureen’s creativity. Domenica started the company two years ago after planning her own family vacations. They had discovered how wonderful short-term rentals were for their multi-generation family to be able to stay together and experience the communities they were visiting, but coordinating everything her then-infant and the rest of her family would need during their stays left her tired and frustrated. She realized there was a gap between travelers increasingly turning to short-term rentals and the lack of concierge-type services available to them, so she started Stock the House to fill the need.
She saw early on that the company was best at serving its clients when they hired local experts. The company seeks out those experienced in hospitality and customer service, but who are also fiercely loyal to their communities and love promoting them. “It’s something that we look for time and time again because that elevates the experience for the client, which is our ultimate goal… [Clients] have something that’s unexpected and bigger and better than they thought they could get because of that local expertise and that love of the local community.”
Domenica finds joy in creating jobs for people who don’t necessarily fit into the boilerplate corporate lifestyle. Stock the House now has dozens of concierges throughout the northeast, many of whom are moms in various stages of motherhood, college students working seasonally, and other retirees.
“Creating jobs around this particular industry gives me an enormous amount of satisfaction because I know that not only are we doing right by our clients by hiring these people, we are giving people like Maureen new opportunities that they didn’t necessarily have before,” she said.
The Community Prosperity Domino Effect
When the concierge work slows down, Maureen shifts into her ambassador role in which she develops partnerships with independent businesses throughout the state. The relationships she builds not only result in immersive, unique experiences for her clients but also keep tourism dollars in Vermont communities. “That’s what makes me happy: helping local businesses prosper,” she said.
Such local businesses include Whistling Man Cruises and Captain Hannah Langsdale, who gives private sailboat tours of Lake Champlain; sustainable farming compound Shelburne Farms; and private chefs like Nadav Mille, Erica Ciaraldi, and Matt Hiebsch who create in-home meals with locally sourced ingredients.
Short-term rental owners and guests share in the economic benefit, too. Vermont is an expensive place to live, Maureen said, and short-term rentals give residents and retirees like her an income that allows them to stay there. For guests, she loves that the short-term rental community offers opportunities and options for those who want to travel with their families but don’t want to or can’t have them in multiple hotel rooms. “It brings families together because it provides that opportunity to be together,” she said.
Maureen’s constant drive to elevate life and travel for everyone hasn’t gone unnoticed at Stock the House, where she has become a right-hand person for Domenica. “I thought I was getting a great salesperson and a wonderful, very detail-oriented concierge that I was going to enjoy working with,” Domenica said. “I have, wonderfully for me, found somebody who has an opportunity to be a future leader of this company.” The pair have plans for Maureen to lead expansion opportunities and replicate her model of success in other markets.
But to Maureen, her work isn’t about the job itself. It’s that guests allow her to introduce something new to them – a food, a market, an event – so they can experience and love her home state like she does. “Everyone really appreciates the work that I do, and that means a lot to me,” she said. “I want to know that I’ve had an impact.”
Read Next: Local as it Gets, Part II: Stock the House, Stock the Community >
What a fantastic story!! Thanks for sharing!