Bella Luce spends £1.75m. on house to knock it down
A HOUSE which was recently bought for £1.75m. is set to be demolished to make way for the redevelopment of the Bella Luce Hotel.
The purchase, which was made earlier this summer, was revealed as part of a revised planning application for the St Martin’s site.
Permission was granted last year to demolish most of the extensions created around the historic granite house at the heart of the hotel and to build a new complex on the site.
The house, which is a listed building dating back to the 17th century, is to get a new thatched roof as part of the plans.
Work has already started and the site has been taken down, apart from the protected building.
‘During that process our client was offered and subsequently acquired the adjacent residential dwelling and land known as Santa Lucia. Santa Lucia is of little architectural merit, and is accessed via the existing Bella Luce access,’ said Max Babbe of Soup Architects in the application.
Santa Lucia is a 1960s-built house on the eastern boundary of the hotel site, and shares the rear access on to Les Camps du Moulin. It had previously been marketed as a five-bed house with an acre of land and was sold for £780,000 in 2021. The recent sale in June was for £1.755m.
The new owners paid £2.58m. for the Bella Luce in 2022.
Mr Babbe said it made common sense to merge the house site with the hotel and increase the planning unit.
The new elements included in the revised planning application are new vehicle access to the north-east of the site, the demolition of Santa Lucia, and the extension of a spa facility, which also includes some staff accommodation, and a two-bedroom flat as a replacement residential unit.
The application shows how a new structure would be built on the site, with three treatment rooms, a gym and thermal pools on the ground floor, along with the flat. More accommodation would be contained on the first floor. The hotel car park will separate the annex from the new 13-bedroom hotel.
The developers are also concerned about the state of trees on site. Initially the application planned to fell six trees, but a full tree survey of the site has concluded that a new approach should be taken.
The survey said that many of the trees on the inner site were not native to Guernsey and in poor condition. It is proposed that a ‘robust’ long-term tree planting programme is introduced. The boundary trees are unaffected.
Due to the size and type of application, the planning application fee for the latest proposal was more than £10,000.
