It's been a long time coming and I may be a bit premature in setting up a website for the building restoration and calling it a tearoom. It will still be a good while before I am able to serve you a cup of tea or anything physical that can't be ordered/downloaded/shipped from online.
The plan is however to build this as an online venture (nothing ventured nothing gained right?) with an active and innovative membership. Starting off small but growing as the building is restored. Forming in the long run a backbone of income to help finance not just the restoration but the ongoing upkeep and running costs to keep the building active and maintained into the future.
I bought this building in 2002 with high hopes for it. Despite having never actually been in it, stating that I wasn't going to buy another ruin and things going badly wrong with our move from County Clare in Ireland it it quite remarkable really that I managed to buy it at all. Followed by the long, long list of things that have gone wrong since it's a miracle that I still own it, so much more of a ruin than I first saw it. Thanks mainly to my mother Anne Rennie and my Aunt Grace Marion Campbell who died in Dec 2020 (and is greatly missed) I have managed to hold on to it through divorce and other costly mistakes. I love this building dearly not just for where it is, adjacent to the ancient standing stones at Callanish, but for what it is. As a Grade B listed building - for it's location more than it's age, it has to be restored as it was as a tearoom in the early 1980's. This is going to be costly. It was always going to be costly but given the current climate the price is going up day by day. I know as I have run it as a tearoom and there will always be expensive overheads and maintenance costs to keep it running in the future. I truly believe it is a worthwhile building to restore and maintain. If I didn't I would have left years ago. Which means I have to find money. So I'm slowly setting up several ways of doing so. As whilst grants would be most welcome I am keen to find a way for the building to essentially support it's own regeneration. There's FUN STUFF COMING. I'm learning to use CANVA - and adding and Etsy store :) I can make templates and stationary. Bring on the DIGITALS.
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