About your Hosts
Bub and Kim Burton
Having nightly rental houses was a new venture for us with our first house opening September 2019. It is a known fact that originally Bub thought I was crazy for wanting to fully stock a house and rent it in Oswego. In fact, he was not the only one that thought I was crazy, but nonetheless he agreed to let me give it a try. After all I had a fallback plan in place if it didn’t work 😊.
After starting and building Integrated Business Solutions for 25 years, it was time for a change. I have worked as a Business Systems Consultant with ERP software starting from the sales process all the way through implementation and continued support to our customers located mainly in the central US. We had employees in different parts of the US and focus with distribution and manufacturing companies. In 2018 my 25-year partnership with Macola took a significantly different direction due to a change in corporate ownership. My passion to grow a new ERP business from scratch with a new software solution was challenged so it appeared God was steering me to make a major change in my life. While I still consult and support our existing customers, I no longer focus on sales or gaining new customers. Instead, I decided to build nightly rental houses right in our hometown, talk about an about face. 😊 I traveled a lot throughout the years and know what it is like to stay in hotels, and I also grew to dread it. Having stayed in Airbnb houses in Alaska, Scotland, and a few in the US, I thought….why not Oswego? They were becoming popular everywhere. The business was built on a fast-track over a three-year period and then continued at a slower pace until 2025. I love the design, decorating and furnishing stage of getting a house ready, especially when I can find that special piece for the house. I am not a huge fan of the prepping stage but nonetheless know it is part of the process. Seeing the transformation and the reaction of those that stay at the houses fuels me to continue building this nightly rental business venture and provide a great home-like stay for those visiting.
Bub worked for seventeen years at Newell Coach in Miami and then went back to school to become a high voltage lineman. He worked as a lineman during his schooling and shortly thereafter, but as projects ended and no openings available, he was faced with a decision of long commute and hours, or we would need to move. We did not want to leave our family or leave our newly built dream house. As an avid hunter and a desire to learn taxidermy, Autumn’s Call Taxidermy was born in 2014. He specialized in deer and waterfowl and his meticulous eye for detail made him very popular with hunters. Bub is also my sounding board for ideas and many of the designs you see in the houses are born out of his input. Of course, he gets involved in many stages of the project as they get to the finish stage. His most important job is putting up with my many ideas and ventures that seem to always take us in a new direction. In 2023 he started scaling back on the taxidermy business and I’m pleased to report as of May 2025 he is officially overseeing Repairs and Maintenance with B & K Rentals that includes 20 total houses. He will complete limited taxidermy and especially cape-off services for our hunters and euro mounts so they can be turned around quickly.
We love to enjoy time on our porch, camping and just spending quiet time together. We love our kids and four grandkids immensely. We have lived a very hectic lifestyle as we built businesses, but we have our sights on a much slower pace of life. Bub still loves to archery hunt, and I even hunt with him on occasion (more for the peacefulness it brings, than the kill). His passion for hunting has turned in the last couple years and now he enjoys duck hunting likely even more than deer. We truly hope you enjoy your stay in our houses and encourage you to learn about all the houses we offer on our website http://www.stayinoswego.com. Be sure to check out Rustic Retreat, it was a vision I had to bring family and friends together. As we approach year seven we are now up to 10 nightly rental houses, 2 extended stay houses in Oswego and one house in Chetopa. I have said more than once, we are done but no one ever believes me anymore, so I will just say, you never know 😊
Kim