Rooms to Improve: Young sisters take on derelict hotel in West Cork

Sisters, 20s, are doing it for themselves at €450k hotel buy which has lain idle since before they were born. The Budget? €400,000 left to spend on phase one

The long-derelict Castlefreke Hotel was developed 60 years ago along with eleven chalets in adjacent sand dunes

A DERELICT West Cork seaside hotel has been bought by two young sisters who weren’t even born when the once-famed hotel closed its doors 30 years ago.

In new ownership is the former Castlefreke Hotel at Owenahincha, a 1960s 24-bed motel-design classic built by a German architect.

Site clearance has started

It was developed 60 years ago along with 11 chalets in adjacent sand dunes in a striking scheme which became the worse for wear, and then to the vagaries of weather along the Wild Atlantic Way.

Work in hand: the filled-in swimming pool and boarded up main hotel block

It has just successfully been acquired by enthusiastic and energetic new owners Aislinn O’Shea, aged 29, and her sister Nicole, aged 26, from Co Kildare who say it’s an untapped seaside gem with architectural quirks, and great potential.

Beached: a 'feature wall' in the Residents' lounge

It’s their first renovation project, they admit, but say they had it surveyed, it’s overall sound and “bone dry”.

If their dream project were to be filmed for TV, or blogged, or podcasted, it would be a crossover between Rooms to Improve, Grand Designs, Cheap Irish ‘Hotels’ and Dr Eva’s Great Escape... all on a West Cork beach, near holiday hotspots Clonakilty and Rosscarbery.

Currently hands-on themselves in site clearance, they hope to open a cafe/restaurant and a number of Airbnb-style rooms to let later this year in a phased, budget-driven restoration “to bring it back to life”.

The two young women spotted the former flat-roofed hotel on eight briar-filled acres behind barbed wire going for sale last July with estate agent Liam Hodnett of Hodnett Forde.

O'Shea sisters sold on Castlefreke/Owenahincha. The motel was one of three hotels by the beach in the mid 1900s and patrons dressed up to visit

They drove down the next day and bid on it within days.

They got the entire lot in poor order, with remnants of an outdoor swimming pool (pic, below) for €450,000, after plans by previous developer owners to knock it and replace it with nine houses were rejected by An Bord Pleanála. Those disappointed buyers said the vacant hotel buildings were in a poor state of repair, architecturally unusual and inconsistent with the character of the area.

Setting is the star

Those plans for housing were objected to by An Taisce, and by neighbour ex-Wall Street financier Stephen Evans-Freke, who has spent over 20 years, and as much as €10m to date, restoring the adjacent Castlefreke Castle, his ancestral home which he acquired back in 1999 after a series of ownership changes.

Bigger budget: Cattle graze on the pastures of Castlefreke Castle near Rathbarry where renovation work has been ongoing for over 20 years. Pic David Creedon / Anzenberger

In contrast to the millions going into the castle at Castlefreke, the O’Shea siblings have a current exceptionally modest renovation budget of .....€400,000.

That’s on top of their ‘basement’ €450,000 purchase price after getting bank support locally for their plans. They finally got the keys to the boarded-up sprawling property part fire-damaged, with basement bar, a month ago.

Graffiti at the basement bar

Older sibling Aislinn is a graphic designer who returned to Ireland after two years in Canada and Nicole has a background in finance. Their father, Eamonn O’Shea, has a background in shop fitting via a Leinster company Prestige Signs, and his daughters hope to tap his expertise and contacts lists for suppliers, they say.

With the aid of project manager Vincent O’Mahony from Ballydehob, they aim to do up the main building (with legendary wine cellar/bar) incrementally, and may refinance once money starts to come in from the first renovated motel Airbnb rooms, and cafe/restaurant.

Half the rooms have sea views over the Owenahincha towards the Stags Rocks and most of the others have views back inland towards the battlements of Castlefreke Castle.

“It’s so cool, we really fell for it immediately,” they said on a brief on-site tour this week in their workwear, accompanied by two dogs, one a regal German Shepherd named Atlas.

They rave about the design, by 1929-born German architect Klaus Kirsten, whose work included industrial buildings for the like of ExRotaprint, housing, two stylish lakeside villas in Lake Garda, Italy — and this distinctive but now-dishevelled hotel complex in Owenhincha, first initiated by West Cork travel doyen, Charlie Cullinane.

At the time of its opening in 1964, the hotel/motel complex was added by the 11 “luxury” chalets, now in individual private ownership (one, owned by a wealthy and internationally known super model) and which boasted “electricity is available by slot-meter”.

A promotion brochure from the 1960s found by the O’Shea sisters when they got ownership boasted “Comfort the Keynote” and noted “TV in your own room is available on request”.

The original enterprising builders/owners also owned Castlefreke Castle for a period and had ambitious plans for its restoration.

Sixty years on, that major task is now back in the hands of the Carbery/Freke family, associated with the estate at Rathbarry for 400 years.

Following the motel/hotel completion, its architect Klaus Kirsten came over to Ireland and ran the hotel himself after 1968, and later also was involved in the conversion to guest use the period Ardnavaha House near Ballinscarthy with poolside cottages. It’s still trading, in different ownership. Mr Kirsten died in 1999.

Freke out. Castlefreke Hotel

Selling agent Liam Hodnett of Hodnett Forde said the sale at Owenahincha last year had attracted very widespread interest, both local and nationally when first offered on three acres, and later sold on eight acres.

Inquiries included investors who considered renovations for conversion to use as refugee accommodation, but some thought the cost of a total refurb in one go was unjustified.

He said the O’Shea siblings had made good use of the time since the sale was agreed last July to make their plans, to proceed in slow phases and declared “hats off to them”.

And, it’s on with the hard hats now for the give-it-a-go 20-somethings.