Angus sisters who brought the Airlie Arms in Kirriemuir back to life are now looking to hand the keys to a new owner.
Dilys and younger sister Nicola Ewart were aged just 25 and 20 when they bought the hotel for £75,000 with their father Barrie.
But after a decade of ownership, they say now is the right time to sell – if the right owner can be found.
They want the hotel to continue to focus on its work in the community. It is listed for sale at £1.1 million.
Reopening Airlie Arms in Kirriemuir
Dilys said it was a tremendous amount of work to bring the St Malcolm’s Wynd property back to operation.
She said: “My dad lives across the road and my bedroom window looks onto the building so I remember it being open and thriving.
“When it came on the market, I said to dad, ‘I have this idea…’
“It took us three hours to view the property as there was furniture everywhere that we kept having to move to get into the rooms.
“Some roofs had caved in and lead had been stolen from the windows.
“A deal was made with another party to buy it – but the sale fell through. 10 months later the agent said ‘if you still want it, it’s yours, but you have to buy in the next 10 days’.
“The price was £75,000 plus VAT and the building was ours.”
Months of refurbishment
Then the real work began. It took almost six months for the Ewarts to open the bar.
Refurbishment of the kitchen followed, before each of the 10 bedrooms were upgraded.
By September 2015, the building was fully functioning again.
Dilys said: “We had no idea where we were going to find the money to do it up.
“The priority was to open the bar and start generating some money. Initially we didn’t even have a card machine and it was cash only.
“We upgraded the kitchen in the summer which allowed us to start serving food. We then did one bedroom at a time. It was a lot of work.”
Adding bedrooms and shifting focus
The Covid pandemic forced the property to close, giving the sisters time to reflect on its future.
They ended up removing the restaurant to add an additional five bedrooms.
Nicola said: “The Covid shutdown was a challenging time, but in hindsight it gave us the opportunity to step back and refine our business model.
“We shifted our focus from a more traditional town bar to a strong hotel-restaurant.
“This change has allowed us to attract customers from further afield and take the business from strength-to-strength.”
Why now is time to sell Airlie Arms
The property was listed for sale by CCL Property last year, but the family are prepared to wait for the right owner to come forward.
In the meantime it is business as usual for the hotel. It has a workforce of 35 that increases to 45 in the summer months.
Dilys said: “We feel we’ve put almost everything we have into it.
“I have a seven-year-old daughter and essentially life has changed. Nicola loves to go travelling.
“We are very active in the community and we’d want this to continue with a new owner.
“It’s done us very well but we just think that somebody else could probably take it further than us.”
Conversation