Ellen Picataggio comes from a family business of hospitality. She and her family emigrated from Korea to Las Vegas in the 1970s where their journey in hospitality began with a small motel on the Las Vegas Strip.  They then swapped Vegas to expand their holdings to Oregon, New York City, and then to Los Angeles.  After working with the family in NYC, she returned to her beloved alma-mater, UC Berkeley, where she studied Art History and English Literature. She paused her education to chase a great opportunity in fashion, managing operations overseas and domestically at a successful women’s clothing label.  She met her husband, Peter, who was a software engineer in Silicon Valley, on a boat in the San Francisco Bay, where their love of music and dance brought them together.  Together they joined the family business, in the late 90’s as newlyweds and remodeled the aging Farmer’s Daughter Motel into an iconic boutique hotel in the Fairfax District.  Ellen’s background in art assisted her in curating the many facets of the “boutique hotel experience”. A key focus of the renovation process was to collaborate with artists and highlight the talent in their local community. Now, as Ellen and Peter enter semi-retirement, they will continue to support artists and their craft, notably in the realm of education and rehabilitation.  They hold a strong belief that art will be the ‘Rosetta Stone” to history and a way to communicate universal truths and challenges. Ellen and Peter have three children and one grandchild.  They are excited to have more time to further their education, travel, create art, and find any opportunity to make it back to the dancefloor.