Work is currently underway to transform Wells House into a unique north Wexford wedding venue
Six months since since the 185-acre property was purchased by local businessman Seán Doyle, work is under way to transform Wells House into a unique wedding venue.
In April, the landmark property – which was officially put on the market with a guide price of €7m – was purchased by Mr Doyle in a deal described by the vendor as “one of the biggest in Wexford in a very, very long time”. Following a very busy and successful summer tourism season, Mr Doyle said they have started work on developing it as a wedding venue.
“We’re working on some of the accommodation up there, including upgrading what’s there and converting some more outbuildings into accommodation. We will have about 25 in total once that’s complete,” explained Mr Doyle, who said that the property has 10 existing accommodation units.
The accommodation upgrades and expansion is “the first step” in the wider plan to make Wells House into a wedding venue, he added.
“We want to get the accommodation up and running first. We are doing things one step at a time so we have no set date on completion really,” he said. “It’s probably going to be a two-year project to get it up at the level we want it to be at, but we still do have some wedding bookings coming in now.”
In the shorter term, Mr Doyle and the team at Wells House have their sights set on their upcoming Christmas event, which he said is attracting a huge amount of interest.
“We are planning a really big Christmas event with Santa this year. We’ve purchased a train and made a new walkway through the forest so we will do a train ride through the forest as part of the Christmas experience. It is selling very well,” he said. “Because there wasn’t much happening for the past two years at Christmas, there seems to be a bit of pent up demand for these things.
“It is going to be bigger and better than anything that was ever there before.”