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Trading the boardroom for the boardwalk
With imagination, good marketing sense, and high hopes, a Villanova alum
and her husband have turned an old Ocean City hotel into a European style
inn by the sea
Maureen McKew
 Imagine
a romantic weekend for two at an intimate turn-of-the-20th century inn.
Sleep on king or queen-sized beds that are dressed in the finest Milanese
linens and fabrics, and enveloped with European down comforters. Bask
in your private Jacuzzi. Sip champagne by the warmth of your private fireplace.
In the morning, select from a range of breakfast treats. Head for the
beach with your sunscreen or luxuriate in a spa without leaving the inn.
Or just kick back and enjoy the view from a mahogany roof deck.
Is this heaven? Is it Europe? Are you about to start hunting for your
passport? Actually, EZ Pass will do because this destination is right
off New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway. It’s Ocean City’s
new Atlantis Inn Seaside Bed & Breakfast. Since its official opening
on the Fourth of July, the inn has done a brisk business, based on its
website, an enthusiastic review from the Chamber of Commerce and that
most precious of all recommendations: word of mouth from happy clients.
One half of the husband and wife team behind the Atlantis is a Villanova
graduate from Philadelphia named Kristina Mychailyshyn Doliszny A&S
‘92. Becoming an innkeeper was not on her list of career options,
when she became one of only six students in the United States to win a
United Nations Fulbright Scholarships in 1990. Back then, she was still
thinking about a law career. However, that Fulbright and her Villanova
education opened her eyes and led her through more career success in 10
years than other people can pack into 40. It also exposed her to a world
of luxury and first class service that she and her husband, Bob, now offer
to their guests.
A new life for an old hotel and for its owners
Located just a block from the boardwalk at 601 Atlantic Avenue, the inn
was once the home of one of the founders of Ocean City, the Rev. James
E. Lake. The resort, which was called Peck’s Beach, was renamed
Ocean City and served as a summer camp for many of the Methodist families
in Philadelphia. Ocean City has maintained its family-friendly, low-key
profile possibly because it still has so-called Blue Laws, which prohibit
the sale of alcoholic beverages. (Hotel guests may bring their own supply.)
In 1930, Lake’s turreted and gabled house had been converted to
a summer guest house with a large edition at the rear, and had been named
the Croft Hall Hotel. In 1975, Kristina Doliszny’s parents purchased
the hotel and ran it every summer until 2001, when they sold it to their
daughter and son-in-law. The timing was perfect. After hectic careers
that had them relocating again and again, Kristina and Bob were ready
to settle down and raise a family. Kristina left Pfizer and joined Medimedia,
a division of Vivendi Universal Health, located in Trenton, not far from
Ocean City.
Their original idea was to run the guest house as a business and live
elsewhere. However, after a year the two realized that, in their own words,
they were “sitting on a gold mine.” They decided to convert
the building to a luxury seaside bed and breakfast, and give it a new
name to match its new identity.
They gutted the interior, except for a wonderful winding staircase in
the front hall, and reduced it from a 30 room operation with shared baths
and four apartments, to 10 luxury suites, each with a large private bath.
“We originally thought we’d be able to do the conversion in
six to eight months,” Kristina said. “However we discovered
that builders don’t like renovations. They prefer tear-downs. It’s
faster for them. It took time to find someone who would do what we wanted.
Finally we found a builder from North Jersey and we basically became the
project managers. We began in June of 2002 and we completed our punch
list one full year later.”
 In
addition to reconfiguring the layouts and reconstructing the interior,
the Doliszny’s installed central heating and air conditioning. They
also added fireplaces, new hardwood floors, crown molding and other touches
that suited the late Victorian architecture of the building. The wrap-around
porch was rebuilt with a Honduran mahogany floor. Remarkably, the new
installations look as though they had been there since 1910. They have
a soft patina of age. Kristina opted for a rich color palette to complement
the oversized European furniture and chose all the colors and fabrics
herself, thereby preventing the inn from having the unreal appearance
of a decorator’s showroom. The suites are themed for European locales
synonymous with romance and luxury: Arles, Bordeaux, Biarritz, Fiorenza,
Versailles, Oporto, Seville, Cinese-Avignon, Cordoba, and Barcelona.
The Atlantis Inn is centrally located and accessible to restaurants and
shopping. Atlantic City and Cape May are just few miles away The Inn is
open year-round. High season (summer) rates range in from $226 to $396
per room per night, based on double occupancy. Off season rates are lower
and special weekend and early bird discount packages are available. (For
more details, call (609) 399-9871 or visit www.ATLANTISINN.com). Spa treatments
are separately priced and provided by the Oasis Spa at the Atlantis Inn.
What about the kids? It is possible to bring a young child (with portable
crib). Beds are available for older youngsters. The rooms are heavily
soundproofed and each suite has its own temperature control.
Reaching for the best
From her earliest days, Kristina Doliszny has absorbed and used every
opportunity for learning. In 1987, as a high school student in Philadelphia,
she represented the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at the Washington Classroom
in Washington, D.C., and traveled to Europe as part of an international
leadership program. A year later, she won an appointment as a U.S. student
ambassador and traveled across the Atlantic Ocean again. Her fluency in
Ukrainian, Russian and Polish (plus some German) was an added plus to
her experiences.
She entered Villanova in the fall of 1988. With an eye toward practicing
law, she majored in political science with a minor in English and concentrations
in public administration and international relations. In 1990, she became
one of only six students in the United States to win a Fulbright/United
Nations full scholarship for study abroad. Then she hesitated. She had
a new boyfriend and had just pledged for a sorority. Did she really want
to leave campus?
As she recalled later, the pressure on her to accept the U.N. Fulbright
seemed to come from all quarters. Finally, someone invited her to chat
about the opportunity. It was Dr. Helen Lafferty, then associate dean
of the College of Arts and Sciences and now University vice president.
“We sat in her office and talked and laughed and cried,” Kristina
said. At the end, Dr. Lafferty said that no matter how I chose, she would
be behind me 100 percent.” She decided to accept the scholarship
and traveled to Jagelonian University in Krakow, Poland. By the way, she
made the sorority, Alpha Chi Omega.
Returning to Villanova, Kristina graduated cum laude in 1992 and the following
March she accepted a position as a professional healthcare representative
in the Rochester, N.Y., office of Pfizer, Inc., one of the world’s
largest pharmaceutical companies. During the next eight years, she won
a number of awards. As she advanced, she relocated -- first to the Pittsburgh,
Pa., office and then to Rye Brook, N.Y. Her responsibilities increased
along with the mileage on her car as she crisscrossed New York State as
a district sales manager. She also married Bob Doliszny, a Canada native
whom she had met at a Ukrainian festival (both are of Ukrainian descent)
when she was in college. Bob, incidentally, may hold something of a record
for devotion because he regularly drove from Humber College in Toronto
to Villanova to see Kristina. Under ideal conditions, it was an eight
and a half hour drive.
When she was transferred to Rye Brook, Bob Doliszny became a U.S. resident,
applied for citizenship and also joined Pfizer. It was around this time
that their fast-track life began to pall. They were living in Connecticut
and the hours they spent working and commuting left them little time for
themselves and their baby son Michael. Kristina made a career change in
2001 and accepted a position with Medimedia, a division of Vivendi Universal
Health in Trenton, N.J. In 2001, she and Bob purchased the old Croft Hotel
and embarked on the Atlantis Inn enterprise
Marketing a dream
In just a few months, the Atlantis Inn has attracted visitors from Washington,
D.C., Philadelphia, Long Island, Paris, California, Colorado and Switzerland.
Most of the guests found the inn on the Internet or through ads in Main
Line Times, and The Atlantic City Press. Other guests have told of reading
about the inn in the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Washington Post, although
the Doliszny’s themselves have not seen these articles. The inn
also received kudos from the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce, which named
the project the best new business opening of the year.
The Atlantis Inn fills a special niche in the New Jersey bed and breakfast
market. There are approximately 80 B&Bs in nearby Cape May and 20
to 25 more in Ocean City. The Atlantis Inn is among the most upscale in
its décor and customer service. “All the years we worked
at Pfizer, we entertained physicians and other customers at restaurants
like Alain Ducasse, The Four Seasons, and Tavern on the Green in New York
City. The award trips we won took us to hotels like The Plaza. Everything
was first class. Years of exposure to this high earners’ market
gave us a lot of insight on the market we wanted to target and what we
wanted to put into our business,” Kristina said.
 But
what is the life of a high-end inn keeper like? Dawn ‘til dusk?
Not at the Atlantis Inn. First of all, the couple maintains a spacious
apartment within the inn. Bob rises at 5:00 a.m. to prepare breakfast
service, which usually ends by 10:00 a.m. The rest of his day is spent
on the upkeep of the inn and in developing the next phase of their marketing
efforts.
Kristina, whose workday used to begin with three hour road trips, loves
her new life, which gives her more time with their two sons, Michael,
aged three years, and Evan, who is a year old.
Kristina Doliszny’s life has taken many turns in the 11 years since
she graduated from Villanova but as she and her husband preside over the
Atlantis Inn, she’s fulfilled the dream of every would-be entrepreneur.
She has put her personal stamp on success.
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