Mary Celeste Beall Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Brooklyn, New York. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine.
Joining me in the studio today is Mary Celeste Beall, the proprietor of Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain in East Tennessee. Mary Celeste is one of the stars of the American hospitality community, and I'm so thrilled to welcome her to our show for the first time. The two Blackberry properties are magical and award-winning places. I've had the privilege of visiting both over the years. Mary Celeste and I talk about both Blackberries, the incredible culinary programs at the two resorts, and the legacy of her late husband, Sam Beall. We talk a lot about grief and how Mary Celeste has led her company and raised her young family while dealing with loss. It's an important conversation and a topic we don't talk enough about. Please stay tuned.
We have a lot going on at Cherry Bombe right now and would love to see you at one of our upcoming events. Jubilee Wine Country is taking place in Napa Valley at the beautiful Solage Resort in Calistoga, California on the weekend of October 26th and 27th. This two-day event is a celebration of food, wine, women entrepreneurs, and community. Keynote speakers include Chefs Dominique Crenn and Tonya Holland, and Jeni's founder Jeni Britton Bauer, who's on the cover of our brand new issue. For more details and tickets, visit cherrybombe.com.
Now, let's hear from today's guest. Mary Celeste Beall, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Mary Celeste Beall:
I'm delighted to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about this summer at Blackberry. Must have been magical.
Mary Celeste Beall:
One of the amazing things about Blackberry is that we have four distinct seasons. Every season really feels like summer, how you imagine it, and the garden is just full of tomatoes, full of heirloom varieties of corn. We don't grow sweet corn, we grow milling corn, and there's lots of water activities. And Blackberry Mountain, which is our sister property to Blackberry Farm, has this incredible slide into the pond. There's just so much to do in the summer and the garden is just busting. Flowers, the zinnias are just popping open. It's a very happy time.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it just sounds amazing. So your title at Blackberry is proprietor. Tell us what that means exactly.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Why don't we ask my mother-in-law who named herself that years ago, but it really just means that I'm leading the business for the family. We have a president, Matt Alexander. He's been there... Today is his 25th anniversary. He was vice president under Sam. And then when Sam passed away, we named him president. And everyone really reports to him. And then he and myself and my father-in-law really make all the big decisions together. And I have my focuses and Matt and Sandy have their focuses, but proprietor just really, it's me kind of being the torchbearer.
Kerry Diamond:
Congrats to Matt. 25 years anywhere is amazing these days.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes, and I'm thrilled that we have had him for so long, and he's an integral part of our business.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about these two beautiful properties, Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain. What is each location about, and how are they different?
Mary Celeste Beall:
So Blackberry Farm really was the first property. It was my in-Law's home. They bought it in 1976, and it is in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. And what's special about it is that it's really the pastoral setting that is adjacent to the Smoky Mountain National Park. So I love to think that someone could jump on the Appalachian Trail from Blackberry and hike to Maine, although I would say they should hike from Maine to Blackberry and end at Blackberry, but it is adjacent to the park. So we have 4,200 acres at the farm. Over half of that is in conservation. The conserved lands are hiking trails, and that borders the park. It's valley in the valley, sheep, lots of pasture land, chickens, beautiful four-acre garden. Really, you're looking at what is now Blackberry Mountain. So in the distance, which is about 25 minutes by car, but it's only about seven miles as the crow flies, that is Blackberry Mountain. It's higher in elevation. It's about 2000 feet higher.
We've really created this place where you're looking at the views of the park so that... We didn't create that park, but what's special about it is it's a mountain looking at the National Park, incredible views, but what we did there is we really wove the nature and trail experience into the mountain. And so we created 25 miles of hiking trails that people can hike to lunch, they can hike to dinner. We don't have a lot of people hiking to dinner, although it's definitely an option, but there's lots of people that'll hike from the valley area up to the top where the fire tower restaurant is. Generally, the difference between the two is that the farm is more pastoral and it's more farm feeling, and the mountain is kind of taking a lot of the things we do at the farm and amping them up.
It's more adventurous. The cuisine is definitely more global flavors. And then there's this whole view situation, which is not really the case at the farm. But they're very different, which I have to say makes me so proud because we wanted them to feel different, but they still have the underlying values, service, quality of the farm, but it's just a different experience.
Kerry Diamond:
So how do you know if you're a farm girl or a mountain girl? If you're lucky enough to be able to go to one of the properties, how do you choose?
Mary Celeste Beall:
Well, I say that if people have not been to either they should do two nights at one and two nights at the other because I think it's fun to see them both and experience them both in the same week, which I do all the time because I live at the farm. I would say it really just depends what kind of experience you want. And at each property, you could have so many different experiences at both properties. You could go for the relaxing spa wellness experience at either property. The mountain has more classes throughout the day. So if someone wanted to come and really just do yoga, hiking, all these things all day long, and do sound bathing and go to the spa, they could totally do that very easily. The farm clearly offers that as well, but just in a different way.
The mountain, I say leave your heels at home. There's lots of gravel, there's lots of sidewalks that you're walking up and down a slight hill. So the mountain is a little more casual, I would say. The barn restaurant at the farm, we still kind of encourage people to wear a jacket. So I really kind of hate to point someone one way or the other because I think they both have really amazing qualities.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest. The fall issue of Cherry Bombe's print magazine is finally here, and guess who our cover star is? It's Jeni Britton of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, the artisanal ice cream company that changed the game. This might just be our coolest cover yet, and I can't wait for you to read all about Jeni and her entrepreneurial journey. Also, we have a bonus cover. It's the delightful Abi Balingit of The Dusky Kitchen and the award-winning cookbook “Mayumu.” This issue is dedicated to the creative class and highlights innovative and imaginative folks in and around the world of food, including fashion designers, artists, photographers, and of course, lots of pastry chefs. If you're a subscriber, your copy will be in your mailbox very soon. If you aren't a subscriber, head to cherrybombe.com to snag a copy or check out our list of retailers to find Cherry Bombe's print magazine at a store near you.
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. It's Jessie Sheehan, the host of She's my Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe podcast network. I have big news for you. My new cookbook, “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes” is now available. This is my first savory baking book, and I'm so excited to share it with all of you. It features a hundred easy peasy baking recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and of course, snacking, from sage butter scones to smash burger hand pies and tomato zaatar galette. You'll also find six of my essential savory baking hacks, including how to make my magic melted butter pie dough and the quickest and easiest caramelized onions. My cookbook tour is underway, and tickets are on sale right now at cherrybombe.com. Thanks to everyone who joined me in New York. I'll be in San Francisco on Tuesday, October 8th, Chicago on Tuesday, October 15th, and Boston on Wednesday, October 23rd. I can't wait to see you. Thank you to Kerrygold and King Arthur Flour for supporting my tour. You can click the link in the show notes of this episode to order the book, or pick up a copy at your favorite local bookstore. I hope you love “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes” as much as I loved writing it.
Kerry Diamond:
Blackberry Farm has an almost mythical status, especially among the culinary community in the South. How did that come to be? And do you agree?
Mary Celeste Beall:
I do agree. I'm so flattered by that, and I can't take credit, honestly. Like I said, my in-laws started Blackberry in 1976. The fact that it's in Walland, Tennessee, which consists of one tiny post office and gas station... So Walland itself is kind of mythical and my mother-in-law, I feel like did an amazing job of saying to people all over the country, "We're in East Tennessee. You may not have ever heard of us or been here, but you need to come." There used to be a saying that was, "Easy to get to, hard to leave," was the tagline for Blackberry Farm.
Kerry Diamond:
That's very true.
Mary Celeste Beall:
I think people just think Tennessee, how could this place be in East Tennessee? And I'm not from Tennessee, I'm from Alabama. I also feel like in today's world, there are so many places to visit, especially what we're seeing on Instagram. Every day, I'm seeing a new place that is opening or that a friend's been to or something. I think the fact we're almost 50 years old, 2026 will be our 50th anniversary, I think the family connection and the fact that we've evolved literally from it being my mother-in-law and father-in-law's home. Sam was born and came home to Blackberry. It's evolved very authentically. They loved cooking. My mother-in-law was cooking. She would ride the mower with Sam on there with her, go to the grocery store, cook dinner. It was their home. And that's then-
Kerry Diamond:
That I didn't know. She was the original chef.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes. And then she quickly had someone and helping her, but she was in the kitchen. She loved opening her home and entertaining, as does my father-in-law. And so that's really been the evolution, has just been very natural from a heart of hospitality.
Kerry Diamond:
You have a real culture of excellence at the properties, but how do you communicate that and cultivate and inspire that within your team?
Mary Celeste Beall:
That is a really tough thing, is to have your own standard and to be able to not micromanage, to empower people, but to hold them accountable. I think what it comes down to is it's a constant effort on everyone's part to constantly be trying to be better. My mother-in-Law used to say, "Good, better, best, never let it rest till the good is better and the better is best."
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. You might need to say that one more time for everyone so we can all write it down.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Good, better, best, never let it rest till the good is better and the better is best.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Mary Celeste Beall:
And I think that she found that on a little toy in East Tennessee, like a little, that thing with a paddle with the ball-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh yeah.
Mary Celeste Beall:
... attached on the string.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so funny. Does she still have it?
Mary Celeste Beall:
No, she's moved 5 million times, and she's not-
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to say that should be a shrine at Blackberry Farm.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yeah. And now, we have so many different team members in so many different places that it's like if we have a motto that we want to share, I'm like, "Well, we need to put it here, here, here, here." Everyone's spread out throughout the whole property, three restaurants, spa, hotel rooms. Each property has multiple restaurants, so there's not one place that every team member goes every day, which is kind of an interesting way to operate a team. It's so many little mini teams within. And back to your point about the excellence is we really have to rely on each person who's leading each department to be really on top of their department. It's breaking down the whole company into smaller pieces, but then everyone works together. And I think that is part of the magic, is that the restaurants are not operating as an individual restaurant.
You're not in New York staying at a hotel, going out to dinner, and then shopping somewhere and then going back to your hotel. Everything's interconnected. And so in a way, it gives us an advantage because so many times if someone doesn't have a great experience in one element of their day, then our team from that... Say their breakfast was slow or something. Then the AM team can communicate to the equestrian team and say, "Hey, their breakfast was slow. They're coming to ride next. Can you give them a little extra attention?" And that communication piece really, I think, is part of the special sauce.
Kerry Diamond:
So it's an ecosystem?
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I would also imagine that you attract people interested in the excellence culture because of your reputation.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Especially our local reputation. For a very long time, there really wasn't anything comparable, restaurant or hotel-wise, in Tennessee. Nashville, as you know, has really grown, and the whole food scene there has evolved so much in the past 10 years. But if you think about 20 years ago, 30 years ago, so we have been a place that people in our region have definitely looked up to. But now for years, we have been recruiting from CIA. We have Andy Chabot, who's our vice president of Food and Beverage. He came from CIA 22 years ago, maybe 21, but we've been recruiting especially in food and beverage outside of the region, but it's also amazing we have young people that just start in our kitchen as a line cook. Steve in our main house kitchen, he works the AM shift. He has been there over 20 years and he lives down the street from Blackberry. He's amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
It's incredible to hear about people who have worked for decades, and also the people can have careers at Blackberry.
Mary Celeste Beall:
One of the things about Blackberry that I have really enjoyed witnessing is how people can start in one place, and then evolve, grow as a leader, and they could completely shift gears. We've had people that started as a server and now they are in our accounting department, or they start as a server or at the front desk in college, and then they grow, and all of a sudden, we're like, "You know what? You are great leader." And so we say, "Are you interested in learning more about wellness? Do you want to lead the spa?" And so it's really amazing to see the evolution and what's possible because it's really so many different businesses in one. Retail, adventure, e-commerce as part of retail, multiple restaurants, spa, of course we have our marketing, our HR, our accounting, the livestock, the garden, laundry, housekeeping. There's really opportunity for anyone who wants to work in hospitality and has a heart to serve.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about my favorite part of the Blackberry universe, your culinary offerings and your culinary teams. There are so many women at Blackberry, which is amazing. We of course have to start with Cassidee Dabney who I've been lucky enough to know and eat her food, and Cassidy is in our cookbook, which is wonderful. Tell us about Cassidee. She's been with you a long time now.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Cassidee is amazing. She's just a great human. She's funny. She's so talented. She's an amazing chef.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, did I even say what Cassidee does? She's the... Tell us her title.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Cassidee is the executive chef of the barn at Blackberry Farm. Talk about someone who is a unique special leader. She has such a great vibe, and we just did an annual event about a month ago. I can't believe it's been a month, maybe it was three weeks ago with Danielle Ballou and Gavin Cason visiting and to hear a visiting chef talk so complimentary about your own chef and the team she's leading is the ultimate compliment. She really doesn't have a lot of turnover. That is another compliment. But she's just a great person. She's so funny, but she's just easygoing. She's continuing to elevate the cuisine, which is focused on what's available in our region mainly. And she does a lot of foraging. I was on a walk the other day and she had three chefs out, and I joked they were looking for mushrooms and I said, "Oh God, I hope y'all don't get poison ivy because there just is a lot of poison ivy near the mushrooms. I'm never disappointed with a dish.
Andy Chabot and I were talking about this the other night. I was at the barn for dinner. And I was just like, it's funny because her menu reads very simply, and sometimes you read it and you're like, I know it's going to be delicious because it's from Cassidee, but she doesn't put a bunch of fluff in there. Then when you get the dish you're like, holy cow.
Kerry Diamond:
Simple is hard.
Mary Celeste Beall:
She complicates it, but you don't know that it's going to come in this very orchestrated fashion. There's a dish that she did the summer, a tomato dish. It's like summer tomatoes is kind of the title of the dish. She cooks them in butter, then she purees them, and then it comes in this bowl, but there's all this secret surprise stuff at the bottom. But when you read it, you think, oh, it's going to be like sliced tomatoes with basil or something. You have no idea that it's going to be this warm dish, and it's such a surprise, and it's so delish. Anyway, I love her.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, she's also kind of living the dream. I mean, she's got the four acre farm. I know you called it a garden, but in New York, I think we would call anything that's four acres massive, but she's got the farm right outside, and gets to work with the gardeners and the farmers, and that's what every chef wants, I think.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Literally, it is two minutes from the door of the kitchen. And then they have their own little herb garden right outside the door of the kitchen.
Kerry Diamond:
That is what every chef wants. Some other special folks too on the team.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes. So Sarah Steffan, she actually took on a new role this year, which has been so exciting. She was the executive chef of the Dogwood, which is in the main house at Blackberry Farm, but she recently took over as executive chef of Bramble Hall, which is our event venue and our private dining. So she is doing all these special events. So if we do a dinner at Yellowhammer Pavilion, which is down by the creek, or if someone does a dinner afield, like a special picnic dinner for their family or something, she's doing that. And so to have someone who is so talented focused on these special experiences, that is really a thrill. And I have to say it makes me happy for her because she has a one-year-old daughter. It was something that worked for us and worked for her. I have five children, I have four daughters and one son, and so I want to support these women that are committed to Blackberry but also have children and families.
Kerry Diamond:
That's amazing, and thank you for pointing that out. Child care, that's such an issue for women in hospitality, especially when you work at night, so I'm glad to hear you mention that.
Mary Celeste Beall:
That is something that we are trying to wrap our heads around how we can come up with a way to help people more because the average child care is 7 or 7:30 in the morning to 5, 5:30, 6:00 PM for these men and women that have small children at home, but they're committed to doing the evening shift. Whether they're in housekeeping or the executive chef, that's tricky. As a single mom, there are plenty of nights where I am not tucking my kids in. Now, they're to the point... They still want me to say good night, but they're getting older. But there's a lot of nights where I am sad that I'm not the one tucking them in. But when I think about little children, the idea of picking them up from somewhere late at night, and then having to put them back into their bed at home, that's complicated, especially if they're in school age. So it's a very complicated issue, so it's going to take a while I think for people to figure it out, but it's something that's on our radar for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Bonnie Moore.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Bonnie is amazing. I know I use the word amazing too much, but these are just amazing women. Bonnie, she is the executive chef at the lodge at Three Sisters at Blackberry Mountain. She had been working in the main house with Josh Feathers for years and years, and she became the executive chef over at the mountain when it opened. She is hardworking, she's talented, she has an infectious personality, she is so positive. She's a team leader, and people love her. They love being around her, they love working for her, and she's very creative.
Kerry Diamond:
And then your Blackberry Farm beverage manager, Kelly Schmidt.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Kelly Schmidt, so her husband's a pilot. Their scheduling... I just talked to them. We had an annual team picnic, and it was so fun to see all the families and the kids, and some people bring their parents. But anyway, we were chatting and I just told her husband and her, I was like, y'all are amazing what you're doing, because their schedules are really demanding. They have very supportive families. That's one of the things that I feel like we're very fortunate to have is a lot of people live near their family, or their parents have moved to Tennessee to be near them and their grandkids. East Tennessee is a lovely place to live. The communities of Maryville, Knoxville, Sevierville, they're not New York City, but they are really wholesome places to raise a family. The standard of living is very reasonable, and our airport's 25 minutes so you can get your city fix but have kind of a manageable easy every day.
Kerry Diamond:
You have a fun beverage program at both properties. Do you still make your own beer?
Mary Celeste Beall:
We are making it, but we actually sold our brewery to another family, a local family. Back to Blackberry being a lot of different businesses rolled up into one, there was a family in Townsend Tennessee, which is closer to the park. It's a really cute little town on the way into the national park. And they really wanted to expand and get into the brewery business, so we handed it over to them ,and they're still making the beer for us, but we decided that it wasn't something we needed to focus on anymore, although people really love our beer, and they loved our brewery merch. I have these hats that I wear a lot, and someone will say, "I want one of those," and I'm like, "I'm sorry."
Kerry Diamond:
You do have an amazing line of pantry items and packaged food. People can check out the Blackberry Farm shop online.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Our chefs and Sam were always kind of playing around. Once we had the four acre garden, naturally there was a lot to be preserved. When it is tomato season, holy cow, lots of tomatoes. And so it really became an effort of we want to preserve this flavor for the middle of winter, not pretending it's summer, clearly, but who doesn't want a dose of amazing tomato in the dead of winter? That's something you've made a paste in the summer, or you've pickled the okra, or... It's just nice to have those. So anyway, so it was kind of a pet project.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm going to do a shout out for your tomato jam right now. That's an amazing product.
Mary Celeste Beall:
It's a good one. It is a good one. Actually, we were with some family the other day, not at our house. My 15-year-old daughter, we hadn't had dinner yet, and she'll kill me for saying this, but I didn't say, doing it anyway. She literally stationed herself right at the cheese, the tomato jam, and the crackers. It was a very casual gathering, but at one point. I was like, "We are going home to eat dinner," and she was like, "I know, but it's just so good."
Kerry Diamond:
She's clearly a smart child. I would station myself by the tomato jam and the cheese and the crackers as well. Blackberry does have the best pimento cheese, I think in the country.
Mary Celeste Beall:
That is a huge compliment because there are a lot of pimento cheese. There's lots of styles, more mayo, less mayo, spice, no spice.
Kerry Diamond:
Chunky, not chunky.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes. I have to say I'm very proud of our recipe, and I used to make it when my oldest daughter was little before we made our own. I would make it occasionally, probably every two weeks, and it didn't last very long. And now, I'm like, I haven't made it in years because I'm like just get something from the gift shop.
Kerry Diamond:
You're spoiled. You don't have to.
Mary Celeste Beall:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to talk about something very serious. You've been running Blackberry for several years now after the passing of your husband, Sam Bell. I'd like to talk about how you've evolved as a leader. But first, I'd love for you to tell the listeners about Sam. He was a real leader in the hospitality world.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Well, it's been eight years since he passed away, and it's crazy that I still tear up, but he was an incredible human, not perfect by any means. He was a nut, a good nut, but he loved entertaining, hosting. We met in high school. Even in high school, if we went out on his boat or something, or were doing something with friends, he was prepared. He was like, "Well, this is what we're going to eat. This is what we're going to drink" in a very casual, cool way. It wasn't overdone. He wanted to make the most of everything. So if he was... And he never wanted to miss a meal. He was always thinking of, okay, if I'm going to do this activity, then I got to have the great food to go with it. And it wasn't fancy. It could be some ribs, or a great burger, whatever, but he loved his kids. He was a really amazing dad.
He had a very special way of getting his kids to do things that he wanted to do, which honestly is one of the things that I am so thankful for because he's not here to now teach them some of these things, but he got them in the kitchen, peeling garlic, chopping garlic, sometimes with a knife that I was thinking, holy smokes, but I'm nursing this baby and I'm letting him be in charge, and this makes me nervous. But he was very passionate about cooking, being fit in a good way. He loved cycling. He loved hiking. He loved adventure. He really just loved life. He was very focused. So there were things that he had no interest in. And the things he was very interested in, he took a deep dive. It was kind of unbelievable how he would be really good at something in a short period, but then he was not good at other things. So if he wasn't interested in it, he just didn't focus.
And I think that's something that we all can take away, is that we don't need to all be good at everything and to find a few things that really bring you joy and move you forward to focus and just be really good at those things is such a gift, not only to yourself because you're kind of eliminating a lot of chatter and a lot of noise in your head of, maybe I should do that. But you're like, no, I'm not. I'm focusing. But he was a great dad. He loved Blackberry. We got married really young. When we got married, we switched from the colleges we were going to in Virginia to University of Tennessee, and we moved to Blackberry. It was a very hilarious experience to be 21 living at Blackberry farm and commuting to University of Tennessee. No one else was doing that. And I had to switch my major because I was at a liberal arts school and I was switching to University of Tennessee.
So his dad and Sam were all talking about what we should do, and I was kind of thinking, well, I'm now going to be a young married woman and my parents are divorced, and I thought, if this doesn't work out, I got to be able to support myself. And so I said, forget art history. I'm going to go into accounting. But I was like, but I don't know. I don't really know what I want to do, but this will be a good foundation. And Sam would look at me with the funny face and be like, "What do you mean you don't know what you want to do?" And I'm like, "Just because you know what you want to do... You're the weird one. To not know what you want to do at age 19, 20..." This conversation honestly started in our teens. He knew he wanted to be a chef and he wanted to run Blackberry.
He was tunnel vision on that. It's just an interesting thing, I think for young people to know that what a gift for people that do know what they want to do. But if you don't know what you want to do... Here I am in New York doing a podcast with you about Blackberry Farm. Never in my wildest dreams would I've thought that I was going to be the proprietor of Blackberry and have 1200 team members that I work with. That was not on my radar, and I think that you never know what the future holds.
Kerry Diamond:
That is very true. I'm curious about the decision-making process because Sam passed away, and it seemed like very soon after, you made the decision that you would take over as proprietor. So many people deal with grief and not being able to go hide. You had five children. You had this incredible business. How do you make such a momentous decision when the grief is so fresh?
Mary Celeste Beall:
That is a really great question, and I know that there people that face this daily. Losing someone, suddenly, it rocks your world. However, I couldn't imagine having watched Sam go. If he had had cancer or some kind of terminal disease and making the choices of, should I be by his side or should I be at my daughter's senior soccer game? And so for me, I feel like God gave us what we could handle, and I very quickly was grateful for that. In a very strange way, within hours, days, it's very foggy, but definitely within 12 hours, I was like, okay, this is awful, nightmare, something I'd never ever even thought about. And Sam was super adventurous and he'd had lots of bike wrecks, car wrecks. He wasn't wild, but he just was someone that he really truly had had multiple times when he could have been really injured or passed.
And so I kind of had this weird thing of, well, I got him for as long as I did. But anyway, I don't know what it was, but I just had this overwhelming feeling that I was going to be okay, and I just kept telling everyone and my kids, we are going to be okay. And when people show up for you, literally his best friends from high school, his best friends that he'd met in the past five years showed up at my house. None of them lived anywhere near Blackberry, flying in at my door the next morning, the next morning. It was overwhelming to think these people are here for me. We're going to do this. But I will say my in-laws are just amazing. And of course, I have to call my mother-in-law and tell her.
And I think I called them together. I can't remember now, but I definitely remember calling my mother-in-law. And I was like, "What are you doing? Where are you?" Because when I got the news, I was at a gas station 25 minutes from home with my son and his friend in the car. I was driving them home from lacrosse. So that was very strange. My in-laws said to me, "We want you to do this." And I was like, "If you believe in me, yes." Back to all the things we were saying earlier, Blackberry is not a place where someone that had an amazing experience running some incredible hotel in California or some great hotel anywhere could just come into. There are people that have been there for 15 years, 20 years. It is a family operation, meaning not just Bell family, but we have multi-generations working there, and so many people that were in our leadership team had been there for 5, 10, 15, almost 20 years. I felt very confident in them.
And Sam had kind of, at the beginning of my daughter's senior year, so six months before it was my oldest daughter's senior year of high school, we had kind of looked at each other and said, she's going to be gone in nine months. Let's be really intentional about this year. And so he had tried everything he could to be at as many soccer games as he could, tennis matches, be at this, be home, be home to cook dinner, not to start cooking dinner at 8:45, but to cook dinner at 6:30, which turned into eight o'clock. But anyway, he had really handed over a lot of the every day, and so that also was empowering to me because I was like, you know what? If Sam was gone for 10 days or two weeks, then Blackberry was still running.
And so I thought, okay, the everyday business is running, and so my job is to really keep everyone moving in the direction Sam had them going and help be a vision. We were about to really get going on Blackberry Mountain, and that was something that Sam and I dreamed about together, because we moved to Blackberry farm in 1997, 21 years after his parents started it. It had a very firm foundation. It was very established. However, Sam did so much to expand the farm, create the farmstead, open the barn. He really catapulted the food and beverage program. However, that was an established look, feeling, business. And so the mountain, a whole new animal, and that, I think, really gave all of us such a positive energy because it was something that we could do honoring his vision, but there were a lot of parts to that that had not been defined.
It gave us something to focus on that was positive and moving forward that we know he would've loved, but it also wasn't that we were all just stuck in this is what Sam did and this is how we do it, because we were forced to say, we all have to step up, and that has been one of the most beautiful things. And I think that's what I've learned most, is that you're never ready. A lot of people kind of live this life of, I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to do this. And then once I do this, I'll take this. My life has been following a spaghetti noodle through a bowl of spaghetti because you just never would've imagined all the things that have unfolded, and it's all been beautiful. I just know that if you keep working hard and you stay focused on your values and hard work, and obviously your vision.. But sometimes there's twists and turns and you just have to embrace them. You may not be officially ready, but you can step up.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you for sharing all of that. Mary Celeste, you've been very open about grief and dealing with grief, not just yourself, how you and your young family have dealt with it. Why did you make, or maybe you didn't even make this decision, maybe it's just happened naturally. Why have you decided to share that part of your life with the public?
Mary Celeste Beall:
I did make a decision. It kind of just started happening, but I will never forget. I think it was the day after Sam died. He died on the afternoon of February 25th, 2016. So I told my kids that evening after I told my in-laws. And then the next morning, people were coming over, and my kids' friends and their parents were showing up. And I just remember looking one of this couple and their son in the eye and I said, "Thank you so much for coming. Just so you know, we don't know how to do this, you don't know how to do this, we don't know what to do, but we're just going to do it," because I think people are paralyzed. And thinking of all these young kids, my kids were three, seven, 11, 13, and 18. I think that's about the ages. It's weird how you block things out. But the point is I had all ages that needed support and their friends didn't know what to do.
And so I was like, you know what? We're just going to be really honest and open about this. And so I wrote a letter. I don't know if it was the next day. I think I'd posted one picture on Facebook my whole life. I just was not a Facebooker. I decided to write this letter to our community because all my kids, except for my baby, went to the same school. And so I wrote this letter that just said, none of us know how to do this and I am going to live on, I don't know if I use that term, but I just said, I'm going to show up. My kids are going to have a soccer game, and I might be in the stands balling, but I'm going to be there, and we're just going to do this. I just need your support, but also just know there's no judgment. We don't know what to do, y'all don't know what to do, but we're just going to do it.
Then the other thing is Sam's aunt, Hope, who's a really wonderful woman, the day Sam passed away, she texted my sister or called my sister and said, "This is weird, but I have a friend who I met whose husband died in a plane crash. She would really like to talk to Mary Celeste as soon as possible. And that seems strange, to talk to a stranger, but she really feels like she can give some wisdom." And I did it. Literally before I talked to so many people that I knew and loved, and had a relationship with, I talked to a perfect stranger. And it was very, very freeing and encouraging. That was so helpful. I just took that as this is a club no one wants to join. No one prepares for it.
That is the strange thing about loss, is that all of us, it is universal, yet there's no open discussion about it. Even at a young age, there's so much talk with our kids about emotions and feelings and mental health, but no one kind of graces this idea of, and at some point, your dog may die, or your grandmother. And I understand it's not a positive thing, but it is something that is going to happen. I realized that if there weren't that many voices... Sheryl Sandberg's husband had died. I can't remember, I think it was maybe three or six months, he died very suddenly on a trip. A friend connected us, and I thought, you know what? We need to do something together, and ultimately she wrote her book, Option B. I just applaud people that share their story because I just feel like it helps somebody.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. Do you think you'll write a book one day?
Mary Celeste Beall:
I think I will. I do love to write and I do love to share. Some people think I might be an oversharer, but I think there's something worth writing, but right now I just have a lot going on and I want to be focused on my business and my kids, but I do. I have a very long journal that I've been writing for years. So at some point, I'll have to find the right person that will help me edit.
Kerry Diamond:
I think as part of the Mary Celeste fan club, I think we all hope that you do write something one day.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Oh, thank you,
Kerry Diamond:
And have the time to do it. How are you kids doing?
Mary Celeste Beall:
They're really doing well. My oldest is the associate home editor at Southern Living Magazine, getting to do so many things that relate to Blackberry, design. She loves to cook. She's a really great cook. It's travel, so she's great. And then my son is about to graduate from college. I'm not ready for that, not ready for him to have the working world schedule. It's hard to get everyone together. That's kind of my thing that I'm sad about really, but I'm excited for him. And he'll be in New York, so that's exciting. And then my other one's in college, doing great, and then I have two at home. I'm about to have another driver. That's going to be fun.
Kerry Diamond:
I understand that Sam would always tell your kids, "Make a great day," and I'm curious what he meant by that. It's very different from have a great day, or have a good day, which most of our parents would tell us.
Mary Celeste Beall:
His dad used to tell him that. He would tell me that too because we knew each other in high school, and so there were times when I saw him in the morning and he'd say, "Make a great day." But Sam took it on. And we didn't always drive our kids to school because it's 45 minutes from Blackberry, and so there were a lot of times when he would make them a great breakfast. His breakfasts are way better than mine, but I'm trying. As we were kind of tucking them in the car to head out with my teenage daughter driving them, it was make a great day. And that is you are in charge of your day. And there are going to be things that happen, maybe it's traffic, maybe it rains when you have set the table outside for dinner, or maybe it's you failed a test, or you got terrible news, or your flight was delayed, and it's just make it great. Figure out a way.
If you're in traffic, think, okay, well, I'm going to listen to the song I've been wanting to listen to, or I'm going to listen to the Cherry Bombe podcast. But there's a lot of things that we cannot control. We have to kind of roll with it, but it's up to us to have the mindset, the positive mindset to say, "I'm going to make the most out of the situation." I think that being flexible, being resilient, being someone who sees a situation and finds the positive in it, not in a, everything's rainbows and sunshine way, there's opportunity in that, and it's a really happy way to live.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. Just so folks know, what was your role previously at Blackberry? You're raising five kids.
Mary Celeste Beall:
So first of all, I have the most respect for working mothers. I really hope that this next generation of women who have so so much opportunity will give themselves grace and find a way to balance, which is such a hard word, motherhood and working because it's such a gift for me. And me stepping in as proprietor saved me and my kids from disaster because I had responsibility. I had to get out of my house. I had to step up, and I was able to continue doing something. Sam loved. I have that connection to Sam. And he was committed to our kids living at Blackberry and all that. So I'm celebrating what he loved, but also moving it forward in ways that have naturally evolved.
So my previous role, Sam was a pretty obsessive person, and so he would be in the dining room till one in the morning if he needed to. Fell asleep at his desk a lot because he would decide that after one in the morning, he should go check his email. There was a point where we decided Mary Celeste is focusing on children, but I had a lot of opportunities. The beauty of a family business is I got to work with our design team on a lot of projects, our events team, hosting events, working with them on planning events, retail. Those were things that Sam loved, but he was very focused on other things also, and so I had a relationship with a lot of them. And so when he passed away, it was kind of a natural fit to say, okay, food and beverage is an award-winning state. Why don't I focus on these things? The overall business, but also I can focus my energy on these things that Sam had not really taken to the next level.
And so it's been nice to know we're continuing his legacy, but I put my own stamp on it.
Kerry Diamond:
I just got a great email the other day. That was the 2025 schedule at Blackberry. You had so many good things on there. The theme for the year, you always pick a theme, is alchemy. Why alchemy?
Mary Celeste Beall:
Well, so much of what we're doing at Blackberry is a combination with surprises. It's chemistry. It's the chemistry of the winemaker visiting the guest chef, it's the chemistry of the cycling mixing. It's marrying all these things together in a way that there's a surprise element, and what comes out of it is something better than the individual parts. It's a blending. It's surprise.
Kerry Diamond:
I did a little research, and there's also a whole thing on spiritual alchemy. I don't know if you saw any of that, but about freeing your spiritual self from your fears, limiting belief systems, lack of self-acceptance, and it was so interesting because so much of that goes back to a lot of what we've talked about.
Mary Celeste Beall:
The idea for me of Blackberry is that someone can come from whatever their everyday life is, and it can be an escape. It can be an escape that is pure relaxation, or it can be an escape where they're learning something new from us, or having quiet and learning something about themselves. Quiet in the woods. Walking in the woods.
Kerry Diamond:
You have a deep healing woods month in May.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes, I don't know the statistics, but getting in nature, especially if you walk barefoot, which I don't do nearly enough and I need to, but the grounding. But then the oxygen in the forest with all of those trees is so good for our physical body, but our mental body as well.
Kerry Diamond:
The walking barefoot on grass is actually scientifically proven. We still have three whole months in 2024, even though all of us are focused on 2025 planning. The holidays must be so amazing at Blackberry.
Mary Celeste Beall:
It's really special because it truly is our home, and so we go over the top on the decorations. Not too over the top, but I do feel very proud of our decorations. But it just feels warm and cozy, and winter is such a lovely time to visit. The views are great. Hiking in the winter, Sam and I love hiking in the winter because you don't get hot. There are no bugs. The views are really, really special because so much of the leaves are down. The holidays are special time. It feels like our home. So getting away to a hotel that has that home feeling over the holidays really feels like you're at your aunt's house versus a big hotel.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you learned to trust your gut?
Mary Celeste Beall:
I really think I have. I feel like I do go with my gut a lot. There's certainly times when I don't, and it takes me a while to realize, oh. But going with your gut also requires being really in touch with yourself. And so for me, taking time away from everything and resetting and reviewing, what are my goals? What have I been doing? Have I gone astray? You got to have some time to yourself.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, we're going to do a modified speed round so we can get you out of here. What beverage do you start your day with?
Mary Celeste Beall:
Water. I'm a huge water drinker.
Kerry Diamond:
Water? Okay.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
You might be the first person to not say coffee.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your favorite food film?
Mary Celeste Beall:
Food film. That is a tough one. I think there's so many, but Ratatouille. I have to say I did love Ratatouille because I also had little kids when it came out, and Sam worked for Thomas Keller in the Kitchen. And so the whole vision of him and then knowing his voice. Anyway, just that was a fun one.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite snack food?
Mary Celeste Beall:
Favorite snack food would be nuts.
Kerry Diamond:
What's always in your fridge?
Mary Celeste Beall:
Oh, too many things. Oh my gosh, so many half opened jars of Blackberry products because someone will open a new jar without looking carefully. And I'm like, well, okay, now we have six jars of some version of strawberry something.
Kerry Diamond:
Or the onion jam.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I know I called out the tomato jam.
Mary Celeste Beall:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
The onion jam is also exceptional. Okay, last question. If you had to be trapped on a Desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Mary Celeste Beall:
Oh, wow. One food celebrity? That is hard. I can't do one. I'll say freshest on mind is Daniel Boulud. Who doesn't want to hang out with him? But also, I was just with Marcus Samuelsson yesterday. Marcus could build me some furniture, paint me a painting, cook me dinner. That's a tough one.
Kerry Diamond:
You are very special, and we love you here at Cherry Bombe.
Mary Celeste Beall:
It's so good to be here, so great to see you. Thanks for all you're doing with Cherry Bombe.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a rating and review. Would love to know what you think about the show and your suggestions for future guests. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thank you to City Vox Studio in Manhattan and Good Studio in Brooklyn. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu. Our content operations manager is Londyn Crenshaw, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.