Resting in the rural village of Allerston in North Yorkshire, is this remarkable, detached holiday home, Foxes Den. Benefitting from a bubbling hot tub and near the North York Moors National Park, this two-bedroom lodge is ideal for a group of four.
Owners Scott & Nicole sit down with us to discuss their lodges and the challenges of starting the builds from scratch along with any stories along the journey so far.
What was the most difficult part of getting the property set up for letting?
Nicole: So the planning process was quite lengthy, we did purchase the land with planning permission already for the three lodges but when we bought the land there were a few elements we wanted to just tweak. We wanted to make the lodges slightly bigger if we could, we wanted wider corridors and wider door frames just so a wheelchair user could use them if needed and that took about a year really working alongside the parish council, so we did have to get an architect involved just to redo some plans.
What do you think makes your property stand out?
Scott: The lodges stand out because I think the location is for everyone really. There is Dalby woods just up the road, there is the sea around 10 mins away, there is York and winter sports as well as bodyboarding at Wycombe lakes and then just being nice and warm with the hot tub really.
Nicole: So, we have Thornton-le-Dale, just a couple of miles along and that is voted one of the prettiest villages in the UK, so most people go there and have a cup of tea in one of the local cafés.
Nicole: I left the building part to Scott, so he built the lodges and then handed it all over to me and said ‘There you go, I am done now, I’ve done my bit’ so then I just let loose with some colours, I just tried to keep the colours and the furnishings quite warm with a country feel, that’s what we personally like so we wanted to make it homely.
What are some of the best features of Foxes Den?
Scott: The best feature on the property I would recommend the bi-fold doors, it brings the outside in and the sound system as well, we’ve got the indoor sound system but then it transfers to outside when you are in the hot tub.
When did you first start the building process?
Nicole: So when we purchased the land it was just a slopped bank, the soil is quite clayey here and we started building on New Years Day, we put the first structure up on New Year’s Day of 2021, so it was freezing, it was snowing, so it was a tough winter trying to get all of the main structures up.
Scott: We bought the land and it was a reasonable price, and we actually asked our family and what their ideas were, some of them were like don’t do it, some of them were like go for it why not.
What was it like opening your property up to guests for the first time?
Nicole: So when we first opened our doors to our very first guests, it was very nerve racking, we set a deadline, I think we went to advert with Sykes in the January and we were opening in the May, so we knew our deadline and we still had quite a lot to do so it was a stressful few months leading up to it and then when we had our first booking, we thought this is really real now, this is actually happening.
Nicole: I think the first day that we opened to guests, I think they actually turned up two hours early and the lodge were ready but I was still faffing around, putting fizz in the fridge and cake on the side. So, Scott my husband, I did not know, he actually turned the guests away and said ‘We won’t be long, we will be ready shortly’ and I was so mad at him, I was like ‘Why have you done that, they are going to leave us a bad review’. So yeah, we have definitely calmed down since then.
What is it like when a review comes through from a guest?
Nicole: A lot of the reviews and the comments are based on the hot tub on an evening. We are really lucky that we get lots of stars in the sky at night time, so if they have been out all day, or they have been hiking or cycling and they come back to relax in the hot tub, almost everybody comments on the stars on a night and that is really nice.
So we chose to go through a holiday agency to help us run the properties simply because we both have our separate professions, so I am still nursing and my husband still has his joinery business, plus we have a growing family, a young family, we would have just never been able to take on all the aspects, so it is really nice to have an agency to work alongside, they’re able to look after the bookings for us and then when the guests arrive on site we can take over.
What is your experience of using Sykes Holiday Cottages?
Nicole: So marketing for the properties was a bit of a learning curve for us, again I have not had a background in business before, I have never had to market anything, social media I am a little bit limited on so that was a big learning curve. But we basically started an Instagram page when we first bought the land and we just started posting and documenting a lot really for our own look back to see the journey that we have come on so we started with that, then when we chose to go with Sykes, we got the professional photographs taken to allow Sykes to use them for the bookings really.
Scott: I definitely don’t do any of the marketing, my wife does a bit of it but to be honest Sykes are amazing, they do a lot of it for us, so it gives us time to have family time.
Would you recommend Sykes Holiday Cottages?
Nicole: I would hugely be happy to recommend Sykes to anybody thinking of property letting, we actually have quite a few friends and relatives that have a holiday cottage or properties that a similar to us and when we have had the same conversations with them, they have all agreed that Sykes is a great brand to go with.
They are really reliable, they are a big enough company that they have the advertising and the team behind them for the support and I think when you are dealing with somebody’s holiday, they are precious, it could just be their one holiday of the year, you want to get it right so you want to make sure that process is smooth right from the booking process all the way to the end of their holiday and Sykes help us to accommodate that.
Do you have any regrets about holiday letting?
Scott: We definitely don’t regret it, it is a perfect decision we have made and time will tell what happens in the future
