Co. Tipperary’s Dundrum House Hotel gears up for multi-million euro upgrade

Work on the €14m upgrade of Dundrum House Hotel and construction of the Tipperary Boutique Distillery on its grounds is to start over the new few weeks.

Recruitment of extra staff to bring the workforce from the current level of about 30 to around 140 full time and part-time employees is already underway. 

The plans for the refurbishment of the hotel were on display at an afternoon reception for local business people in The Venue at Dundrum House Hotel and Golf Resort  on July 4.  

Dublin interior design firm L'Estrange Designs has been engaged by to give Dundrum Hotel's manor house a more luxurious image that is also in keeping with the historic building. 

Drawings and plans for the revamp of the hotel's guest bedrooms, bathrooms, bars and restaurants were on display at the reception, which concluded with the guests being transported to Ladies Day at Tipperary Racecourse where the hotel was among the racing sponsors. 

Dundrum House Hotel's new owner American businessman Jeffrey Leo of Steelworks Investments Ltd was at the reception and is looking forward to getting work started on the hotel's facelift and the new whiskey distillery. 

He had originally hoped to refurbish the hotel over the past year to have it ready for this summer but he says the delay was beneficial as it allowed them to improve their plans. 

Mr Leo reported 22 holiday homes on the hotel's grounds have  been refurbished since Easter and work has started on bedrooms in the hotel's wing section.  Refurbishment  of the manor house and function room and conference centre is expected to begin at the end of this month. The function room will be upgraded to accommodate a capacity of 350 guests, making it the biggest hotel function room in the county for weddings, conferences and other functions

 It's planned to commence refurbishment of the leisure centre in October and this will include physically connecting it with the rest of the hotel.  There are also plans to rejuvenate an old walled garden on the estate and grow vegetables and fruit in it for the hotel's restaurants. 

Mr Leo estimates the hotel's revamp will take one year and the goal is to have the new look four star plus hotel ready by August 2020.

 A mix of local and Dublin based contractors are being hired for the project. 

He said it was also "full steam ahead" with starting construction of the whiskey distillery and visitors centre, which secured planning permission in June.

  It's hoped to start work on the distillery in August/September and the project is expected to take about nine months to complete. 

The Tipperary Boutique Distillery was founded by Jennifer Nickerson, her father Stuart, a renowned Master Distiller from Scotland and Jennifer's husband Liam Ahearn from Grange, in partnership with Mr Leo's firms Steelworks Investments Ltd. 

The new Deansgrove Steak House that is due to open at The Venue on August 16  is also a partnership between Dundrum House and local businesswoman  Fiona O'Dwyer of the well known Martin O'Dwyer's Butchers in Cashel. The steakhouse will be open from Thursdays to Sundays.    

 Fiona O'Dwyer said   all steaks served at Deansgrove Steak House  will be sourced  from the O'Dwyer family farm  near Cashel, killed and cut at their abbatoir and butchery.    

"This is our first restaurant enterprise. People come from far afield for our beef and we decided to try and go this  step further. 

“We have a big cooked food and deli business in our shop in Cashel and people were always asking us how to cook our food," she added.