Olivia is a 4th generation Chautauquan born and raised in Montreal to a Moroccan French father and American mother. Her mother, Joan S. Piper, was introduced to the Chautauqua grounds by her grandfather, Congressman William Piper, who regularly took his grandchildren to see programs.

 

Olivia summered yearly at Chautauqua, and in 1982 her parents bought The Englewood, an historic boarding house (1876) in the downtown center of the Chautauqua Institution. In the summers, the Guest House taught Olivia all aspects of the hospitality trade, while soaking in the education of Chautauqua's renown cultural programs. She took over full operation of The Englewood Guest House in 2010 following her mother's death, and ran it as a boutique bed & breakfast until 2017. 

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In the winter season Olivia pursued en education in the Visual and Liberal Arts, and then Language Education, earning a Doctorate in Applied French Linguistics in early 2017. This was just prior to breaking ground on a long-anticipated renovation and preservation project for The Englewood.

 

An historically protected building, The Englewood in it's original form still housed rooms with shared bathrooms, outdated mechanical and electrical elements and overall had outgrown it's living spaces. With the help of her construction savvy father, Amram Amzallag, Olivia became the project manager for both the construction & design, converting the house into condominium apartments. 

 

The Englewood now houses six privately owned apartments, and Olivia now welcomes guests in her 3rd floor "TreeHouse" apartment, which occupies the 3rd floor of the building.

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After years of teaching experience in secondary school, university, private and corporate instruction, Olivia currently serves the military as an Assistant Professor of French at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA.