At Your Service review: Big plans fall through at Dunmore East but café and yoga prove popular
Francis Brennan tries yoga at Dunmore East.
On Monday night’s episode of At Your Service, John and Francis Brennan were impressed by one couple’s plans for luxury lodges on the coast, but a rejected planning application saw some innovative changes reap rewards.
Alan and Grace Skehan own a busy holiday resort Dunmore East, Co Waterford. Their offering includes a large mobile home park, self-catering houses, a nine-hole golf course, restaurant and bar but the couple dream of adding a luxury element for families: 26 high-end lodges overlooking the sea.
They call on the Brennans for help and guidance in the venture and the brothers sense obstacles in their path. For starters, Francis thinks their prototype lodge looks like a home for hens.
“I’m not at all impressed by this. It’s not attractive. It's just sitting there and it has nothing going for it. This is plastic PVC, this to me is what you’d put on a hen house,” he says.
“It’s the furthest thing from a lodge that you’d ever see and it’s also plastic,” he tells John over the phone. “A lodge to me is something that is made from wood and could be seen in the Canadian Rockies, you know: made of wood.” “It’s a site office as opposed to a unique experience,” John responds, hitting the nail on the head.
Alan and Grace are surprised by their reaction, with Grace saying the lodge has always impressed visitors. “When Francis named it a ‘hen house’, I thought that was harsh. It was a little bit unfair I think,” she says.
“It’s floor-to-ceiling glass and panoramic sea views. Anyone else who steps into it gave it the wow factor so I was a little disappointed to hear that.” Alan jokes they could “market it as ‘The Hen House’ as a take on Francis Brennan”.
Francis is impressed with their family-focused caravan site, however, and recalls his own rather Father Ted-esque summer holidays as a child in his aunt’s caravan. “I loved it. There was 25 of us in a caravan meant for six,” he says, immediately bringing Graham Norton’s beloved Father Noel Furlong’s tiny caravan to mind.
After looking at their figures and poring over their plans, John thinks the lodges are too ambitious, that they have too many “loops” to go through to matierialise. “Coastal planning is always a problem,” Francis adds, predicting John’s hair will be grey by the time they’re finished. “It’s in the blood,” he jokes.
They’re not wrong. Alan and Grance hoped to have the lodges up and running by summer 2021, but in April that year, they eventually learn that their planning application is unsuccessful. “Total refusal,” is how Alan describes it. Rather than be turned off, they drive forward on other changes the Brennans suggested.
The bar and restaurant have been an issue, demanding long hours for the couple, and Grace admits “we know we’re making mistakes” around food and decor. They decide to bring in an outside operator to run their food and drinks offerings to free themselves up. They focus on revamping the bar and restaurant and adding a coffee shop which is very popular, particularly at weekends.
Golf has always been an attraction that draws guests to the area and Alan and Grace choose to focus on another outdoor activity by offering yoga classes. We even get to see Francis Brennan struggling to do a thumbs-up while practicing his tree pose on the windswept coast of Co Waterford. "I feel me buttocks going up, never mind me thumbs," he quips. The classes are a hit and Grace tells Francis people have been travelling across the country to join their sunrise classes.
While Alan says the lodges are still “a work in progress”, the future looks bright for the Skehans and their resort.
