After deciding to make Seadrift their weekend home in 1998, Chris and Deb bought a trailer house just yards off of San Antonio Bay. Each Friday was spent traveling from Houston to Seadrift to prepare for a weekend of fishing or hunting entertainment. After a full week of cleaning decorated model homes each night, Deb would arrive early Friday afternoon to prepare food and to clean the trailer. That same year, Chris obtained his captain’s license, and every weekend was reserved for guiding. During the week, however, Deb continued to clean houses and Chris continued to sell tires back in Houston.
In the summer of 2001, Chris and Deb acquired a house on a private canal in Seadrift, and Bay Flats Lodge was born. The new Lodge provided them an ability to host twelve nightly guests. Deb had to leave her commercial home cleaning business in Houston so she could focus all her attention on cooking, cleaning, and booking trips at the Lodge. By the end of 2004, however, business was growing so rapidly that the Lodge was often having to turn away guests.
The current lodge came online in 2007, and it could accommodate up to 30 guests each night. In preparation of its opening, Deb searched night and day for the perfect items to fill each room – just the right room furnishings, bedding, and wall art. She selected everything personally and with care. In doing so, Deb has managed to provide not only a look and feel of some of the finest hotels and lodges worldwide, but she’s also preserved the authentic appearance and semblance of the Texas coastal experience.
Rather than providing a modern-day encounter along the shores of San Antonio Bay, Deb has chosen to allow Lodge guests an exceptional opportunity to completely escape the hectic routine of today’s world. Although rather scarce today, Deb feels like Bay Flats Lodge is intended to serve us all as an exceptional lesson about some of those things most meaningful in life, as well as about fishing and duck hunting. She and the staff have a keen understanding of why their guests select the Lodge as their choice for getting away from it all. Deb’s greatest satisfaction comes from watching Lodge visitors unwind and become relaxed again as they revitalize themselves. A day does not go by that Deb doesn’t make every effort to ensure that Bay Flats Lodge continues to provide a phenomenal and preferred destination for their guests for years to come.