A Scottish holiday estate in the same family for two generations has secured a significant refinancing deal.
The owner of Monachyle Mhor, Mhor 84 and Calair Cottage hailed more than £1.7 million in investment from hospitality lenders The Cumberland Building Society.
The Mhor Estate is owned and operated by Tom Lewis, the 53-year-old chef and hotelier whose portfolio consists of a boutique hotel, a roadside motel, a self-catering cottage, a retail concept store just off the A84 and a bakery business, Mhor Bread in Callander.
READ MORE: 'Thriving' Scottish country inn for sale
Mr Lewis’ mother originally purchased Monachyle Mhor, the main hotel, in 1983, where it was operated as a small guesthouse bed and breakfast before the chef acquired it in 2005, making the decision to expand its services.
The refinancing of the Mhor Estate has been granted to help grow the business, enhancing the estate’s earning potential, with £980,000 being allocated to major infrastructure works at the main hotel, including investment in a hydro-dam, harnessing the power of local waterways to generate electricity.
It said £475,000 of the investment is being used to support Mhor 84, an informal, casual motel, restaurant and bar strategically positioned on the A84 road up to the Scottish Highlands.
READ MORE: Family sells historic Scottish hotel
The remaining funding has been split between Mhor Bread and Calair Cottage, a self-catering accommodation. The investment will see Mhor Bread expand its artisan bread business to a takeaway service.
Guests can enjoy apitherapy, or bee therapy, which involves staying in a cabin with beehives engrained in its structure.
Mr Lewis said: "Mhor holds a special place in my heart and my family's history. From its humble beginnings as a small farm guesthouse B&B under my mother's care to the flourishing establishment it is today, it has been a labour of love.”
READ MORE: Acclaimed Scottish city restaurant put up for sale
Stuart McNaughton, commercial relationship manager at The Cumberland said: “We first started working on the refinance for Tom around a year ago, and we really took the time to get under the skin of the business and understand the vision and direction in which Tom wanted to take it.
"Based on the business performance to date and Tom’s passion and success in hospitality, we were really pleased to be able to help re-finance the Mhor Estate.”
Monachyle Mhor now employs over 85 staff.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel