The Boat House – Built with Heart, Hands & a Hint of Madness

We’re Debbie and Andy – a pair of slightly obsessive renovators, design lovers, and life-jugglers who left the conventional path to bring The Boat House to life. What you see today is the result of years of passion, a whole lot of graft, and the kind of blind optimism that carries you through when everything goes wrong at once.

We met in 2021, so not that long ago, quickly bonding over a shared love of old buildings, creative projects, and a certain delicious kind of madness. With Andy’s background in commercial project management and high-end renovations in London, and mine in marketing, design, and more Georgian property restorations than I care to count — we had enough experience (and just enough recklessness) to think we could take on something big.

Really big.
Like a crumbling 27-bedroom Georgian guest house, big.

After cutting our teeth on the restoration of Shipmate’s Cottage — a quirky 1820s hideaway just off Sandside that nobody else would touch — we found ourselves falling in love with Scarborough’s historic charm. One renovation wasn’t enough. We wanted to do something extraordinary, and when we walked into Cliffside Guest House, beneath the wallpaper and the rot, we saw potential. Big, beautiful, terrifying potential.

Planning permission took absolutely ages and was not granted until a year after we had purchased the place
The building had to be stripped to its bones.
Budgets were shredded.
Timescales laughed in our faces.
We worked seven days a week, through winters, scaffolding, rodents, and breakdowns (both mechanical and emotional). Andy did the heavy lifting, I worked evenings and weekends — all while still holding down a job at Nestlé until I “retired” to run The Boat House full-time. We both sacrificed everything we could — savings, sleep, sanity.

And yet, somehow, we made it.

We created the house we dreamed of: a peaceful, elegant sanctuary with sea views and soul. Somewhere people could truly relax. Somewhere a little special. We’ve poured our hearts, history, and humour into every corner of it — and though we’ll probably always be improving things (that’s just who we are), it’s as perfect as we could make it.

A bit about us?

I’ve worked in marketing all my life, lived across Europe, spent 7 years in Spain, with my children and always had a passion for interiors and transformation. The Boat House is my dream job now — welcoming guests and creating beautiful experiences.

Andy is a born-and-bred Scarborian (despite the accent), a trained joiner, and a former commercial fit-out specialist who’s helped shape some of London’s finest venues. And in case you’re wondering — yes, he really did play keyboards for Sade in her early days. I like to think I found myself a really Smooth Operator.

We look at this house now — at what it was and what it’s become — and although we’re still recovering from the madness of it all, we wouldn’t change a thing.

We hope you love your stay, that you feel the care and joy we've poured into every detail, and that you'll come back — to The Boat House, to Shipmate’s Cottage, and to Scarborough.

You’re always welcome.