Actor Val Kilmer will soon join the ranks of celebrity innkeepers. His application to turn his 5,970-acre ranch in San Miguel County, New Mexico, into a bed and breakfast was approved late last month by the San Miguel County Commissioners. According to a report in The New Mexico Independent, the commissioners tabled a vote in March and then "asked Kilmer to appear before them to explain his comments about violence and alcoholism in northern New Mexico." His comments were quoted in a 2003 Rolling Stone article and a 2005 Esquire article. Kilmer apologized, claiming the quotes were taken out of context.
Kilmer, whose film career has included starring roles in Top Gun, The Doors and Batman Forever, is the latest celebrity to seek a second career as an innkeeper. Actors Richard Gere and Carey Lowell run The Bedford Post Inn in New York, novelist Nora Roberts runs Inn BoonsBoro in Boonsboro, Maryland, and England's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla opened their Llwynywormwood Estate as a sort of bed and breakfast. Actress Tori Spelling had a short run as innkeeper of Chateau La Rue in California.