The last few nibbles still linger on their plates when the inn guests begin murmuring. French doors welcome in the morning light, illuminating half-empty juice flutes and just-picked flowers in bud vases. As they savor the final bites of breakfast — flaky herbed quiche with roasted potatoes and crisp maple bacon, plus a baked caramel apple tart for dessert — the diners are already anticipating what comes next.

Craig Verm, still holding a coffee carafe, smiles knowingly and turns toward his wife, Karen, who’s already two steps ahead and moving to the foyer. She sits down at the piano, locks eyes with Craig, and, in an act of coordination refined over decades of duets, the silence is broken:

My Lord, what a morning
My Lord, what a morning
O my Lord, what a morning!
When the stars begin to fall.

After years of moving from place to place, the Verm family — Karen, Craig, and their daughter, Lauren — settled in Mills River. One of the deciding factors? The Bed & Breakfast on Tiffany Hill had a nook perfect for Karen’s piano, now a centerpiece. photograph by Tim Robison

Craig’s baritone belts out proud and pronounced, as if he’s reaching toward the back of a grand auditorium. For many years, the couple did just that — on hundreds of stages, to roaring applause. These days, though, their audience sits six feet away, not 30 rows back.

Some guests nod along. A couple clutches hands. All smile with delight. You won’t find it on a menu, this final offering of the breakfast hour. But the private concert — the “Fourth Course,” as it’s been dubbed — has become quite a highlight for visitors to the Bed & Breakfast on Tiffany Hill, the seven-suite inn in Mills River, just northwest of Hendersonville.

• • •

The Verms’ story began in 2002 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Karen says it was the kind of first date you plan when you aren’t convinced you want one. Where you forgo the dress and reservation and instead opt for sweats and takeout.

Busy with her graduate studies and close friend group, Karen wasn’t fully reciprocating Craig’s level of interest. And yet, after a movie and Thai food, the two ended up in the kitchen, where they stirred, baked, and awaited raspberry-chocolate pastries. Music played, the dessert puffed perfectly, and, as fate would have it, that first date paved the way for many more collaborations in the kitchen: for caregiving, for entertaining, and, later, for cooking and serving daily breakfasts to guests at the inn.

Guests savor three breakfast courses made with recipes that the Verms have collected and perfected over many years of hosting family and friends. photograph by Tim Robison

The Verms married in 2004, and the coming years took them from Pittsburgh to Houston to West Virginia as they followed professional music careers and raised their daughter, Lauren, 15, a visual artist and musical theater talent in her own right. Craig sang on opera stages throughout the United States plus South America, Europe, and Asia, while Karen taught and accompanied at some of the country’s leading music schools, including Rice and Carnegie Mellon universities.

In 2023, the family spent six weeks in Europe — Craig was recording an opera with the BBC while Karen was a pianist for the West Virginia University choir. Feeling at a crossroads in her career, Karen daydreamed of a change of pace. She’d been enamored with the inns they’d called home throughout their travels — the idyllic properties, the encounters with new people, the interesting cities, and, too, the delicious meals.

Soon, she found herself Googling “bed and breakfasts for sale,” and that search led her to Tiffany Hill and Courage Is Abundant in the Abstract, the book its founder, Selena Einwechter, wrote about her own leap of faith from the corporate world to innkeeping.

Throughout their marriage, the Verms have frequently hosted family, friends, graduate students, and traveling performers. “It seems that people sharing our space has really always been our thing,” Craig says. photograph by Tim Robison

The Verms, who had family in the area, began visiting Tiffany Hill later that fall. They were smitten with the five acres of porches and patios, gardens and gathering places — all tucked into a serene, rural setting — and finalized their purchase of the property in April 2024.

“We’d joked when we were younger about how lovely it would be to shift everything and run a B&B, but we certainly didn’t think it was going to happen in our 40s,” Karen says. “It’s fun to look back and think, Oh my gosh, God’s been making us ready all along.”

The couple is quick to say that innkeeping is an evolution of their professional music careers, not a full retreat from them. Karen, 49, is the pianist for their church, Grace Mills River, and Craig, 46, still takes occasional opera performances. “But,” he adds, “there’s been a joy of music that has returned for both of us now that our livelihoods aren’t dependent upon how we perform.”

• • •

That joy is particularly evident in their Fourth Course. While they initially assumed these mini morning concerts would happen by request as guests spotted the piano or heard about their backgrounds, it was soon clear that this was something most everyone would enjoy.

Craig, who had his first gig at New York’s Metropolitan Opera last spring, says he took home something valuable from that experience. “I learned I loved this,” he says, motioning around at the inn, “so much more. I love opera, and I loved the Met. I love the stage, I love the camaraderie, the adrenaline, and the storytelling. There’s magic to it.

“But there’s a different kind of magic here,” he continues. “Looking in people’s eyes and seeing them well up with tears — it can be a kind of spiritual moment. Versus when you’re onstage and looking out into lights, here, it’s intimate and personal, and you can’t escape its power.”

Craig’s vocal style — full-throated and full-body expressive — follows his operatic training. “Opera is unamplified. It’s an art form that predates electricity, so you have to use the natural acoustics of your instrument and of the hall that you’re singing in.”

Guests can snuggle up in the living room, stroll the five-acre property, or set off to see local sights. photograph by Tim Robison

Complementing his vocals, Karen is an extraordinary accompanist. “You can put any music in front of her, and she’ll read it,” Craig says. “And not just read it — she performs it!”

Their repertoire varies from the classics to musical theater, opera, and even pop. The couple especially enjoys performing songs with personal connections to the folks at their table.

Today, for instance, Craig turns to Donna Silverman and Jeffrey Carlsen, frequent guests and dear friends of Tiffany Hill. He smiles and gives them a nod as Karen plays the first chords. Hearing that cue, Jeffrey takes Donna’s hands into his, and they lean their heads close together. This is the one they’ve been waiting for:

Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger
Across a crowded room.
And somehow you know,
You know even then,
That somewhere you’ll see her again and again.

• • •

Donna and Jeffrey first visited the inn in June 2024, just a month after the Verms took ownership. Their first morning, following the decadent three-course breakfast, the couple was astonished when music filled the halls.

“It was very emotional,” Donna recalls. “Between his voice and her piano playing — and being right there among the incredible acoustics of the dining room — it’s like my body reverberated with the music.”

The Verms began the next day with a moving rendition of “Some Enchanted Evening,” not knowing that the song would spark the memory of Jeffrey and Donna’s first meeting.

Some enchanted evening,
Someone may be laughing,
You may hear her laughing
Across a crowded room …

Before leaving, Donna penned in the guest book how much they enjoyed the “Fourth Course.” The name stuck. Since then, the Florida couple has made many more visits. And each time, the Verms play the favorites that Donna and Jeffrey return for.

• • •

Soon, it’s time for this morning’s fourth and final song — a nod to both the Audrey Hepburn classic and the “breakfast at Tiffany’s” that guests have just indulged in:

Moon River, wider than a mile
I’m crossing you in style someday
Oh, dream maker
You heartbreaker
Wherever you’re going,
I’m going your way
Two drifters off to see the world
There’s such a lot of world to see …

While their careers have taken the Verms around the globe, these days, the world of western North Carolina beckons — from the trails and waterfalls in nearby Pisgah and DuPont forests to the shopping and dining in Mills River, Brevard, and Hendersonville.

Tiffany Hill’s seven suites are each named after a Southern town, like Charlottesville. photograph by Tim Robison

Other days, these drifters are just as content to pass the time at Tiffany Hill, harvesting herbs and berries for breakfast, baking a cake for a guest’s birthday, or preparing for new arrivals.

Approaching the last verse, Craig slides in closer to his wife, then reaches a hand out toward the group as he croons the final words with a wink of his eye and a twist of the classic lyrics:

We’re after the same rainbow’s end
Waiting ’round the bend
My huckleberry friend
Mills River and me.

The guests stand and clap in warm appreciation. Karen touches her heart; Craig wraps an arm around her waist. The ovation is quieter here — fewer hands, smaller audience — but to the Verms, the sound is still in harmony.

Bed & Breakfast on Tiffany Hill
400 Ray Hill Road
Mills River, NC 28759
(828) 290-6080
tiffany-hill.com