Originally Posted by
dunster
The house you're describing wouldn't be interesting to me for a quilting retreat, unless there are features that you haven't mentioned. Quilting in a garage sounds dreary, and having to trek to it from the main house in bad weather (hot, cold, or wet) could be a problem for many. Also the number of people it can accommodate is quite low. Most retreat sites that I'm familiar with have more to offer. I would suggest that you work with the numbers, determine how much income the site needs to produce to break even (including taxes, upgrades, maintenance, insurance for this type of use, etc.), and then show how many bookings per year at various price points would be needed to meet this goal. If you can get some input from local guilds that is good, but I think it really is up to the buyers to decide whether they can entice people to come there.
I agree. I"m not sure that a house as small as the one that you mentioned would be a good fit for a retreat. Most guilds have way more than 8 members going on retreats and the garage/quilting area would probably need a lot of work to make it a nice area. I would imagine the costs for having an 8 person retreat with their own house would be fairly steep so you'd have to find out if anyone is even willing to pay that much for a retreat. I don't know what area you're in but my first step would be to see if there is even any interest in a retreat at the prices you'd have to have.
Also, remember you are going to have several months every year that there will be no retreats. November, December and January and usually dead. Plus summers arent' going to be active. So that would leave you 6 months to make however much you have to make.
Just a thought but you might want to expand to others for use just to keep it full. But, again, I'm not sure how many groups would be interested in a venue that small.
Oh, and I totally don't want to cook on a retreat, but have many food sensitivities. I'm not alone in this so that's something to keep in mind also.