BED-AND-BREAKFAST Winery guests sleep yards from tigers

The winery owners hope to attract animal lovers and outdoor enthusiasts with the cats.
STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. (AP) -- The latest draw for visitors in eastern Missouri has a stripe of a different color: The owners of an increasingly popular winery have opened a bed-and-breakfast and upscale restaurant next to a tiger habitat.
Since Chardonel grapes were first planted at Crown Valley Winery in 1998, it has become a regional attraction with more than 32,000 wine tastings recorded last year, said operations manager Bryan Siddle.
"A lot of wineries have bed-and-breakfasts. The tigers are the unusual part of the equation," said Christopher Ruess, Crown Valley's marketing director.
That's for sure. It has a lot of people wondering how a litter of tigers, one of them a white tiger, wound up in mid-Missouri.
The tigers have lived on the 55-acre property since 2002, part of the Global Resources for Environmental Education and Nature nonprofit organization, run by husband and wife Keith Kinkade and Judy McGee. They rescued the tigers' parents from a previous owner and have cared for the animals since they were born.
The animals, kept in a caged enclosure, would not have survived in the wild.
Winery
The property was bought last year by Joe Scott Sr., and his wife Loretta, who own the 8,000-acre winery down the road, along with a golf course, two lodgings and three antique malls in eastern Missouri.
The Scotts used their new property to create Crown Ridge, a bed-and-breakfast with a restaurant and five big-cat stars, named Dee, Max, Paul, T.J. and Vincent.
The tigers are still cared for by Kinkade and McGee, who live adjacent to the tigers' fenced-in habitat and can see them through a reinforced window in their home.
Visitors to Crown Ridge can get a basic tour of the habitat for $8 ($4 for children). There's also a $75-per-person "behind-the-scenes" option in which guests can feed the tigers if it's their regular feeding time.
Efforts to educate visitors include a colorful, detailed brochure about the animals' endangered status.
However, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has raised concerns, saying the animals, and others, should not be viewed for commercial purposes.
Also, PETA spokeswoman Lisa Wathne said in a telephone interview from her office in Seattle, places like Crown Ridge could lead others to seek out exotic animals of their own. Wathne said Crown Ridge has extended her an invitation to see the tigers, but she has not been in Missouri to be able to do so.
Siddle noted McKee and Kinkade have cared for the tigers for years, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture said their nonprofit had been issued the proper permit, which is granted based on inspections.
Lodging
Visitors can now stay at the property, in an area dotted with farms and vistas of the surrounding hillsides. Both the Tiger View Lodge and the Tiger Den have three bedrooms each and share a small swimming pool and tennis court. Prices begin at $170 a room to $680 to rent out the entire lodge house, the more expensive of the two properties. Crown Ridge is about an hour's drive south of St. Louis.
If individual rooms are rented out, visitors share the common areas, including tiger-striped furniture and a game room with a pool table.
Visitors also may tour Crown Valley's 44,000 square-foot winery, about 7 miles down the road from Crown Ridge, or visit four other wineries in the area. Tastings are available at Crown Ridge for $5 to sample seven wines.
Siddle said the attractions -- the winery, the tigers and the bed-and-breakfast -- all tie together.
"It's just like golf. Sometimes people [visit the region] to play golf, but they don't drink wine. This way, we can maybe get animal lovers or someone who likes the outdoors. It's a way to get another market, another group, out here," he said.
Debbie Fisher, 49, of St. Louis visited the tigers recently with her mother, her daughter and her 3-year-old granddaughter. Curiosity about the cats had prompted her family's visit.
"I was surprised, because there's nothing like this around here at all," she said.
"That's why we wanted to come see it."
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