Sisters restoring an abandoned West Cork hotel are fired up to serve pizza by April
The former Castlefreke Hotel at Owenahincha, West Cork which is currently undergoing renovation. Picture: Dan Linehan
SIXTY years after it first opened and thirty years after it closed, the long abandoned beach hotel at Castlefreke in West Cork is set to open its doors to the public again in April.
As the first stage of redevelopment, it’s going to have a café called 1964 (after the date the hotel first opened) and a pizzeria called Swim Club, which as an unusual feature will include sunken seating in the former outdoor swimming pool.
This follows a year of renovation work at the hotel – a flat roofed motel style development separated by sand dunes from Owenahincha Beach, which during its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s was a mecca for holiday makers from Cork city.
The redevelopment has quite surprisingly been undertaken by two sisters in their 20's, Aislinn and Nicole O’Shea from Kildare, who began trawling property websites for renovation projects when the majority of their contemporaries were scrolling TikTok.
It’s the first renovation project for Aislinn (29) a graphic designer and Nicole (26) who previously worked in accounts. “Over the last year we have had a few "what are we doing moments” but there have been very few of them,” reveals Aislinn.
In preparation for the planned opening in April, the sisters have decided to give locals a taste of things to come by opening a coffee truck at the gates of their property. “This gives us an opportunity to tell people about our plans and is also a good way of doing market research and getting some advance publicity.’’ There’s quite a bit of history attaching to Castlefreke Hotel - which has changed hands several times since closing in the 1990s and was almost knocked a few years ago by previous owners who tried, but failed, to get planning permission to build nine houses on the site.
When Aislinn and Nicole first found the old hotel in July 2022 it was boarded up, graffiti-covered and derelict, having been used for drinks parties, lived in by squatters and, at some point, partially set on fire.
The sisters ,who came across it online, were excited to discover that this wasn’t some hastily put up 1960s flat roof hotel but one which had been designed by a well-regarded German architect Klaus Kirsten, who was responsible for some visually striking modernist buildings in post-war Berlin.
“We think it was influenced by American architecture and may have been designed to look like a Palm Springs hotel,’’ says Aislinn adding that keeping the interesting original architectural features has been important to them.
Travelling to West Cork immediately to view it , they later paid €450,000 for the hotel (which is made up of a two storey building and a separate block with 24 bedrooms) and its eight acre site. The O’Sheas subsequently secured €400,000 in funding to get the renovations started.
“When we went inside two rooms still had their furniture and were untouched since the hotel closed but all the others had been completely wrecked," says Nicole.
They cleared out the site themselves before getting the fire damaged roof on the main hotel building replaced and finding a local contractor to put in tempered double glazed windows throughout.
Rather than treating it as one big project, the sisters decided to break the work up into manageable sections.
“It’s a massive undertaking – we scared off quite a few tradespeople by talking about the whole job, so now we just ask them to do smaller ones,’’ says Nicole.
“For the roof we used energy efficient Polish technology called thexpan, which involves thermodynamic Insulated panels and has heat exchangers to heat water,’’ reveals Aislinn explaining that this arrived on the site by truck in 18 metre long sections.
Once the roof went on, work started on the electrics and plumbing and fitting out a kitchen for the café and putting in a pizza oven.
For the sisters, this is just stage one. The plan for now is to seal off other parts of the old hotel including the first floor and the separate bedroom block.
"Our long term plan is to open a 24-bedroom boutique hotel and a 70-seater first floor restaurant with 180 degree sea views , "says Aislinn.
They haven’t’ yet decided whether the accommodation or the restaurant could come next but won’t be making any decisions until they get Café 1964 and the Swim Club up and running.
“We would do it all ourselves if we had the money, but we may have to look into investors for the next stage,’’ says Nicole.
The café – occupying the space once taken up by the hotel bar – will have seating for around 30 indoors and the Pizzeria will have outdoor seating for around the same number.
“People stopping by at the coffee truck have been telling us how much the place needs a café and restaurant,’’ say the sisters who believe that there’s a huge summer market for this type of venture.
Although there has been relatively little development in the area in recent years, the draws that brought crowds of day trippers and holiday makers to the area in the 1960s and 1970s haven’t changed.
“The beaches are the main attraction and Owenahincha Blue Flag beach which is popular for surfing and swimming is within a few minutes’ walk ," says Aislinn, noting that Long Strand and Red Strand are also within a few kilometres.
The bedrooms at the back of the site have views of Castlefreke Castle,an 18th century turreted structure currently undergoing a multi-million Euro upgrade.
The bedrooms at the front of the hotel overlook the Atlantic and the beach and, according to the sisters, will have even better views once the trees at the edge of the site have been cut back.
But for now the focus is on finishing off and furnishing the café and pizzeria for the reopening in April.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
