Developer is hoping to build apartments and a restaurant at B ray Head Hotel site
A PLANNING application has been made for the former ‘Bray Head Hotel’ on Strand Road.
The applicant IDV Developments Ltd is seeking permission for apartments and a restaurant-bar on the site.
The application looks for the refurbishment and alterations to front facade, and removal of the signage. The facade is registered as protected.
IDV Developments wants to construct a fourth floor penthouse over the existing structure, and a five-storey residential block to the rear for mixed-use residential and commercial. Extensions and additions would be demolished in the plans.
The application requests the change of use and reconfiguration of part of the ground floor to provide for a restaurant/bar and cafe.
The upper floors would also require change of use for residential apartments with refurbished balconies.
The total number of proposed residential units is 46, comprising one studio, 12 onebed units, 22 two-bed units and eleven three-bed units. A decision is due in October. Previous owner Ena Regan Cummins decided to sell the property in 2016, 55 years after her parents Pat and Nancy Regan had purchased it.
Ena’s late husband Johnny passed away in 2015. After running the hotel alone for some time, she decided the time was right to sell.
The hotel is over 140 years old and boasts a rich history in the film industry. Films shot there include The Commitments, Breakfast on Pluto and My Left Foot together with TV series such as Love Hate, Bachelor’s Walk and Ballykissangel. Stars who filmed there include Vanessa Redgrave, John Hurt, Pierce Brosnan, Neil Jordan, Colin Farrell and Daniel Day-Lewis.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were also regular visitors while Burton was filming The Spy Who Came in From the Cold at Ardmore and again while filming Wagner in 1981.