‘It’s a lot more real now, and a lot more scary’ – meet the Kildare sisters who poured their savings into a hotel and overhauled it on a budget

The Kildare sisters are the team behind The Little Island resort in west Cork. The California-style boutique motel overlooks the rugged Castlefreke coastline and Owenahincha beach and comes complete with a swimming pool and restaurant, aptly named the Swim Club Deli.

The O’Sheas bought it for €450,000 in 2022 after plans by previous developer-owners to knock it down and replace it with nine individual houses were rejected by An Bord Pleanála.

“We were originally looking at townhouses and thinking, right, maybe we can turn this into an AirBnB. We had feelers out for a long time, and then we saw the ad for this, and we were like, ‘it’s a bit bigger than we had anticipated, but sure, we’ll go have a look anyway’. And that was it,” Aislinn says.

Planning to buy a hotel is one thing, but funding it – and its transformation – is another. “It was very much exhausting all of the options, a lot of scrimping and scraping. I spent about three months solid just trying to find grants and funding options, and there wasn’t a whole lot out there at the time for hospitality. There’s stuff out there for other businesses, but for us specifically, it was really hard to find anything.

“So it was a lot of pouring all of our own savings into it. We were really lucky to be able to get investments from other family members, and then we were basically just about able to get the doors open. That allowed us to secure funding through more traditional means, like banks and stuff for the next phase, which we’ve just completed as well.”

The fact that Aislinn was shopping with her sister was a surprising roadblock for getting a mortgage. “Whenever we talked to banks about stuff like this, it was always like ‘well, we don’t really like to grant loans to siblings, because what if you get married and you want to do something with somebody else?’

“And it’s like, well, you’ve more of a chance of falling out with a partner or somebody than with a sibling. I feel like you’re more closely tied.”

From the get-go, the plan was to spend €400,000 on the first phase of renovations – and they managed to stick to it. They say it takes a village, and theirs was a definite help.

“Especially in the first phase, we had to do a lot of it ourselves, because we couldn’t really find anybody, but also we couldn’t afford to get a crew in to do all the stuff. So we did all of the clean-out and demolition ourselves,” Aislinn says.

“And it was kind of dragging family members in whenever they had a few days off work or school or whatever, to come help us clean up and paint walls.”

Throughout the whole project, the goal has been to make savings where possible, some of which may pay dividends in the long run. “We went to the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) for their green initiatives fund, that was something that was always important to us as well. We’re trying to make it as sustainable as possible,” Aislinn says.

“It will get to a point that it’s all renewable energy that we’re using. We’ve put in a lot of stuff that was probably more costly than we would have wanted, but it will last us in the long term. We replaced the roof because there’s a big hole in it, we went with one that will generate all of our hot water, so it will stand to us in the future.”

The hotel offers the sisters a new career path, which is complemented by their work histories. Aislinn’s background is in graphic design, while her sister previously worked in business.

“I’m not the money person, Nicole very much looks after that. She does all of our accounts, and she handles all of the payroll stuff and the admin side of it. Then the website and the social media and stuff is more my avenue,” Aislinn says.

“That was a big help, not having to outsource the website or get in somebody that can look after the books and stuff. Obviously, we have accountants that do our end of year, but really everything else Nicole can do, we’re really lucky there.”

With two years of hard work behind them, the sisters are preparing for what will hopefully be a busy summer ahead. While €400,000 was the starting point for phase one, Aislinn finds it hard to put a number on what the final total will be.

“We still have a long way to go and there’s so many other things that we want to do as well. I can see this carrying on for years and years, and God knows how much we’re going to end up putting into it,” she says.

“But it’s kind of where we’re at at the moment; we’re just taking those accounts and getting enough funding to do the next bit, and then going from there.”

As they prepared to open the first of their bedrooms to guests, the question of room cost was a tricky one to answer. “Obviously you’d have an idea from a consumer perspective, but the way things have gone in the last couple of years, inflation is crazy, and you kind of lose track of what things should cost. So we did a lot of research into that,” Aislinn says.

“There was obviously looking at what’s around us and what other things are valued at. But we did speak to a few people. I was in touch with somebody from Fáilte Ireland, and they gave me a lot of advice on how to approach the [rate for a] bedroom, specifically, because that was a big one. You don’t want to start off wrong.”

They landed on a starting rate of €180 a night for a room with a sea view (€205 if you want to bring a pet along to your private patio).

And with the question of how much to charge comes the question of how soon will they see a return on their hefty investment. It’s one that weighs on the O’Sheas, too. “Last year, I wasn’t as worried, because we’re not going to make our money back or start making real money until the bedrooms are open,” Aislinn says.

“Now it’s at that point where it’s like, okay, the bedrooms are open, and if the money doesn’t start coming in, obviously we have lots of loan repayments, and there’s a lot of overheads associated with the whole business. So it’s a lot more real now, and a lot more scary.”

But setting out to open the The Little Island resort was the O’Sheas’ way of escaping the hamster wheel of a 9-5 or more traditional office job. Looking back on the experience so far, it’s clear that although the stakes were, and still are, high, a lot of determination and a dash of sisterly companionship will hopefully lead them safely to success.

“A lot of people were like, ‘Oh, you’re mad, it’s such a huge thing to take on’. And there were elements of that for us as well. This is definitely more than just doing up a house,” Aislinn says.

“But I don’t know, we just jumped straight in and everything fell into place once we started on it.”

To find out more, see thelittleisland.ie