From Chance Encounter to Dream Vacation: The Story of Studland Dene Holiday Apartments
Welcome to Studland Dene Holiday Apartments. We are Sarah and Pete, the owners.
Our purpose-built holiday apartments are located at the bottom of Alum Chine. A short (around 3 minutes!) walk takes you to one of Bournemouth’s beautiful beaches. Bournemouth has 7 miles of award-winning coastline – including the famous Sandbanks, Poole Harbour and Studland Bay.
Our story began in 2001 when we were introduced by a mutual friend when we met by chance boarding a train to London. We didn’t know we both worked for the same company – but isn’t that often how relationships begin. We started travelling together on work trips which have taken us all around the world, and we always enjoy staying in a ‘home from home’ rather than a hotel. Consequently, we have stayed in all types of AirBnB and Guest House accommodations.
Wind back to Summer 2010 when Sarah and our girls were discussing a holiday to Florida. All of them have a love of Disney and wanted to experience the Disney theme parks. Although Pete loves to travel, the USA was a long way down the list of places he wanted to visit…. But you know how convincing 3 daughters can be and he agreed to the trip. We went on to enjoy a magical holiday which became the start of our vacation home owning journey.
Less than 8 weeks after our return from Florida, we had sealed the deal on our first vacation rental property. Inspired by the success of this venture, we decided to try something similar in the UK. We visited South Devon and the Jurassic coast several times searching high and low for the ‘perfect’ property. We wanted something that was suitable for families in a beautiful location. Finally, after almost 3 years, we found Studland Dene. Our new business was born.
We both are driven to owning and managing our own business and used our shared experience of our Florida Vacation Home to launch Sea Spirit and Sea Quest - our two Bournemouth apartments.
Fun fact – QS Properties is named after Sarah. Our daughters have always referred to Sarah as “Queen Sas” (Queenie for short).
We love the Dorset coast so much that we decided to move here ourselves. So in 2021, still in lockdown, we left our family home in Hertfordshire hills and now live less than 5 minutes away from the apartments. This has allowed us to give our visitors a much more ‘bespoke’ visitor experience. We aim to deliver a true home from home experience for the whole family.