The Chronicles

A Brief History

My name is Barrett, my husband’s name is Roger, and we are the owners and operators of Beats Working Vacation Rentals. We are a married couple who started out with a small dream of living and working near the beach. After years of working in hospitality via restaurants, hotels, and resorts, the opportunity to manage a home in New Orleans fell into our laps in 2014. Within a year of starting our business, Beats Working Vacation Rentals was managing 25 homes in the city of New Orleans.

Being a Bama girl, I brought Roger on a family vacation to beautiful Gulf Shores, Alabama, where I’d spent a lot of time during my childhood. Roger had never experienced anything like Gulf Shores, not either in his home state of Louisiana or out West, where he still has family. A man of many talents—and now a licensed Alabama real estate salesperson—Roger is also a retired Disaster Responder, which comes in handy when managing vacation rentals in remote mountain locations and hurricane-prone coastal areas. On this first trip, Roger planted the seed of expanding our vacation home offerings to the Fort Morgan area of Gulf Shores. By 2018, we were managing homes both in New Orleans and along the Emerald Coast from Gulf Shores to Panama City, Florida. In the fall of 2022, we stayed in a stunning AirBnb in the mountains of Murphy, North Carolina while attending a friends’ wedding. One thing led to another, and we now manage this same beautiful mountaintop home in the Smoky Mountains—in addition to one other listing that we added to our Smokies rental program over the following six months.

In 2021, at the suggestion of a friend, we took a short trip to Key West, Florida, staying in a little cottage near Duval Street. We had a blast, but coming out of New Orleans, we knew Duval was not really our day to day scene. The following year we took an extended vacay, staying in the Casa Marina neighborhood, followed by many monthly long trips to the Heart of Old Town. Our travels to Key West feel more like going home—having similar feels of where our business began, back in New Orleans, over a decade ago. We have come to spend more and more time in this Southernmost City—creating friendships that we cherish and amazing memories together. With the support of our friends and our incredible skills in the hustle, you can expect to see some offerings in the Florida Keys under the Beats Working umbrella in the upcoming season. Stay tuned ya’ll!!!!

We are sad to say that we no longer manage rentals in New Orleans, Louisiana—the O.G. home of Beats Working Vacation Rentals! Due to stringent COVID regulations during 2020 and beyond, plus the more recent short-term rental regulations that the city has put in place, it is no longer feasible for us to manage any homes in New Orleans.

Despite our wide geographic range, Beats Working Vacation Rentals has a small, trusted staff who works hard because they are paid a living wage and given the tools they need to succeed. We also have a crew of specialists and subcontractors who partner with us in each state. We take great care of one another in order to take great care of our clients’ homes and guests.

We are very selective about whom we work with, and we encourage owners to do the same. Homeowners and management/cleaning companies are definitely not created equally. If you would like a reference, we will gladly put you in touch with any of our clients, co-workers, or repeat guests.

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