At Tarbert, waiting for the Portavadie Marina revelation

The word ‘vision’ has been debased by every hack politician trying to rise to an occasion that is itself usually well below the radar. It has become a word almost devoid of meaning.

Yet sometimes you rediscover the meaning and when you do, it redeems the word.

A recent fact finding visit to Argyll’s Portavadie Marina, in the south west of the Cowal peninsula, organised by Ron Simon, one of the area’s councillors, produced such a redemption.

The purpose of the visit was to introduce key guests from the worlds of tourism, planning, enterprise and politics to the new resort complex. The project team walked and talked the visitors through the buildings that opened last year and the next phase nearing completion for this season.

The first contradiction of assumptions came at the approach to the slipway at Portavadie. Confession time – we thought this was the marina complex. It is, in fact, a £1.5 million staff accommodation block.

Now you’ll be getting a sense of what is to come.

Staff matter

Recruiting is unlikely to present any difficulties with an attitude like this to staff welbeing.

Look at the finish. Forget the scaffolding which will shortly come down – and look at the indication of the spaces within. It will be filled with light. It is. It will have fabulous views over to Tarbert. It does. This is not a place and these are not owners and architects who envisage the staff living in attics and cupboards.

Here is a staff bedroom. The light at the end of the bed is flooding in from one of the tall windows you can see in the front elevation in the exterior shot above  – and with a lochside view. Beyond the window is an en suite bathroom.The building is narrow and tall, with access corridors along the inland wall, leaving every room with views over the water.

Each floor has staff common rooms with a well appointed kitchen, leather sofas, lockers and full size windows – with the obligatory waterside view.

The Portavadie Marina rewards successful hospitality staff from other top class establishments, like Gleneagles, with breaks at Portavadie. As well as underlining the owners’ commitment to the best possible service, this brings them useful feedback from staff working in other places focusing on quality.

Everybody matters

This complex has been designed and built with a place for everyone. If you arrive by helicopter – and they do – the manager will send a vehicle to the landing place to bring you, your friends and your gear round to the restaurants or the 5-star apartments. More on those dream time habitations in a minute.

Families and groups of friends on a budget can share a large room in the lodge – like an upmarket travelodge with up to two king sized beds, a single bed an en suite bathroom – and again, with the views. These rooms can be catered or self-catering.

The lodge has a communal atrium style gathering space on the ground floor (below) where food is served and which will have a sprung floor for dancing.

Bikers and hikers, divers and kayakers can have a bed and a locker. The Cowal Way, one of Argyll’s four great long distance walking trails starts close to the marina and Cowal is great walking, cycling and biking territory.

Families with pets can have one of five detached 4-star, self-catering cottages (below) with open plan living areas to the front and bedrooms to the rear, all pine and white walls. These face across the marina to the main public buildings at the resort – the viewing tower, the restaurants, the apartments. The distance of the cottages from the main buildings and from the pontoons offers privacy and quiet for parents with young children and for older people who like to retire earlier.

Indeed, there are rooms in the lodges fitted out as bedsits with kitchen corners – specifically tailored for older people who like the option of withdrawing to tranquil independence from time to time.

The lodges have professional kitchens which will serve food to lodge residents who will have the choice of eating there or going over to the restaurants – another boon for families with young children.

Dream time

The entire complex has been designed to offer affordable luxury to everyone. And between the glorious two-tiered glass fronted restaurants with the viewing tower and the indulgent spa building to come – yes, there will be an indoor pool – are some 5-star apartments, only two per block.

The buildings are designed to offer shelter, teasing views and a sense of secret places, regardless of the direction you approach them from.

All of this spectrum of buildings are marina-side, with wide decks and viewpoints projecting outwards to take advantage of the views over the water and the fabulous yachts.

Some of the apartments span two floors, sleeping eight and with two sitting rooms, allowing adults some sanctuary. All apartments have a sauna in the bathroom.

The sitting rooms have floor to ceiling windows overlooking the water and the boats. All have sliding doors opening out onto their own viewing balconies.

All the interior doors are walnut and so inviting you have to touch them. Some apartments have double height ceilings (below) with roof lights letting in even more light.

The restaurant building is two tiered (below), with the wide promenade deck sweeping alongside it, above the pontoons.

At the western end of this exciting structure is the spectacular viewing tower (below), with blocks of lighting under each internal platform that change colour as you watch. Night time is breathtaking.

There are two restaurants, sharing a double height lobby (three above, right) for access to the window areas where the sitting dens (below) and the dining tables are sited.

The dining areas are again white and light – everything seems almost to float and the tranquillity, with the proximity of the water and the yachts, just wraps itself around you as, below, in the top floor restaurant.

Having two restaurants allows one or both to be open at any given time, depending on the season of the year and the number of bookings.

The complex warmly welcomes visitors for lunch and dinner and is becoming the chill out venue of choice for folk from Cowal; from Tarbert – a 20 minute ferry ride across Loch Fyne that delivers you straight to the doorstep; and, at weekends, from Glasgow – a mere two hours away.

The Portavadie Marina has a philosophy that people will always be fed. The kitchen never closes. If the restaurant is full when hungry yachties arrive, there is a gourmet take away service for them. Henry and Carol Jagielko, who manage the project for a family investment, have undisguised contempt for the ‘I’m afraid the restaurant is closed’ excuse for not looking after valued customers as well as you should.

Any visitor-facing business exists to attract and delight their customers – serving their needs, putting them first, finding ways to deliver what they would really like, making them special. A high level of the vital return business is the benchmark of successful service.

On the other side of the light filled sitting and dining areas and on the ground floor of the restaurant building, is a bar which also serves first class coffee and staff come and go from this station.

In between an apartment block and the restaurants, in an area which last year was a massive play area for young children, there is to be a very posh ‘marquee’ for weddings, other major private celebrations and corporate meetings and reception. This will be warm whatever the season, built with hard walls, insulated and with double glazing, below a plastic roof – and you can imagine how stylish that’s going to be. The ‘marquee’ will have direct access from the main kitchens so staff will serve from there, with the shortest possible distance for the food to travel.

As you’ll have gathered, nothing in this complex has been forgotten or left to chance. Everything has been sympathetically envisioned with the pleasure and ease of visitors in mind.

On the promenade deck directly in front of where the ‘marquee’ will be, is projected a broad, triangular observation platform, which screams ‘wedding photographs’. Below, Councillor Ron Simon, who organised the visit, is enjoying the views from it, over the boats to the surrounding hills and to the marina’s sea entrance, away behind him.

This cannot be anything other than the wedding destination of choice. And one can easily imagine exotic occasions with sailing buffs and their guests arriving by water in all their finery, bride’s train adding to the wind speed; deck shoes swopped for altitudinous heels on disembarking; and yellow oilies dumped to reveal dress kilts or morning suits. Way to go.

The marina

The same imaginative and practical attention to detail and care for quality of finish is true of the marina itself. The very walkways have been designed to be easy and safe – at 2 metres, they are wider than normal, rock solid and the cable trays for the eco-friendly pontoon lighting and the power points for the yachts are under the outer edge of the walkways, avoiding the usual tripping hazard.

Services are well organised and to hand. The owners are themselves sailors so they know what sort of facilities sailors dream about – and they’ve made sure to deliver them.  They were also very methodical in the development of the marina itself – visiting popular marinas in the UK and Europe during the design stage and bringing their findings to bear on what they have created at Portavadie.

The marina will take 230 boats, with 150 permanent berths and 80 for visitors.

Among the mouthwatering sailing hardware on the pontoons are two elegant classic boats that, in another life, were ‘little ships’ in the rescue fleet at Dunkirk. One of them, Chico (above), was also, in that former life, one of Malcolm Campbell’s Bluebirds. The other, Llanthony (below), once belonged to the Astors.

You look at both of them now, restored, serene, beautiful, lying easily at their berths and you wonder if you stood long enough beside them until they’d forgotten your presence, would they talk in their sleep and tell their stories. These boats have been part of much that the rest of us only know from history books and television documentaries.

Access, opportunities and days out

From 23rd May 2011, Argyll’s West Coast Motors, a logistics partner of Portavadie Marina, is to start running no fewer than five return bus services between  Glasgow and Campbeltown, passing through Tarbert. This offers holidaymakers at the marina the opportunity to hop on to the ferry across Loch Fyne to Tarbert and take the bus for the day either to the lively city of Glasgow or the mercantile Victoriana of Campbeltown on the celebrated Mull of Kintyre. There they will find the town’s unique picture house and the chance to play golf at one of its two world class and unique golf courses.

One of these, Machrihanish Golf Club, the senior of the two, was designed by Old Tom Morris of golfing legend and has a signature first hole spoken of with awe, where you drive off across a river estuary.

The new kid on the block is the already renowned Machrihanish Dunes course, the first to be built from the off in a Site of Special Scientific Interest and, unusually for a new golf course, loved by everyone from the outset.  Its fairways are kept trim by a flock of gorgeous black Hebridean sheep – looking more like a family of flat-coated retrievers. It also has The Old Clubhouse bar and restaurant on site.

Together, these adjoining courses make Campbeltown a major draw on the golfing map. The West Coast Motors service will put them within easy reach of visitors to Portavadie Marina – and the bus trip down the west side of the Kintyre peninsula could hardly be more scenic, with views to the whisky Isle of Islay and the Paps of Jura (above).

Moreover, the Loch Lomond Seaplanes Golf Express service can whisk the serious golfer between the courses of Ayrshire – like Turnberry and Trooon and these two famous courses in Kintyre.

The five-a-day bus services to Campbeltown would also make for an easy day out on the little inshore Isle of Gigha (below – Gaelic for God’s Island), with a short ferry from Tayinloan and its sub-tropical gardens at the Achamore Estate, created originally by the Horlicks family.

The villages of Milhouse, Kames and Tighnbruaich, Portavadie’s neighbours leaning to the inner Clyde waterway, are, with Kilfinan Community Forest, a world of their own, almost out of time. Milhouse has the remains of one of the four Argyll gunpowder works – and the bell summoning its once-upon-a-time workers to their dangerous shifts now hangs at the entrance to the estate between Milhouse and Kames. A piece of fun on the side is that a steamer serving the gunpowder works was called – the Guy Fawkes.

Kames is a dreamy little lochside anchorage with the peaceful Kames Hotel high above the shore. Tighnabruaich is a charmer of a small winding village, full of nooks and crannies and with a good art gallery. It sits at the choke point of the fabulously scenic Kyles of Bute. These are the two sides of the v-shaped narrow waterway separating the north head of the lovely Isle of Bute from the mainland of Argyll’s Cowal peninsula.

A little further round this lush, almost sub-tropical inner coast, is Colintraive, with the minutes-long car and passenger ferry ride across the narrows and over to Bute. And there you will find the marbled glories of Mount Stuart House; the sense of spiritual sanctuary at the ruins of the church of St Blane, a contemporary of St Columba; possibly entertainment at Rothesay’s art deco Pavilion;  and chips at Zavaroni’s.

Portavadie Marina, as a base for landlubbers or leisure sailors on short or longer breaks, offers easy access to a wide radius of adventures – and that’s even if you don’t walk,  bike, dive or kayak.

Team Portavadie Marina

So much about this £45 million project – its imagination, its ambition, its concept, its design, its delivery, its quality and its care for its visitors, is dreamlike that it comes as no surprise that it has been driven by a dream team.

On the visit, the sense of camaraderie, the collective passion for what, together, they have created, was something to warm your hands at.

The project managers, Henry and Carol Jagielko (above) – directors of a family investment in it, have been involved in every aspect of the project. Carol, an architect, worked closely and obviously joyously with Brian Stewart of Stewart Associated, the architect for the development.

Last year, when For Argyll was the media partner for the biennial Argyll and Bute Sustainable Design Awards, we gave the Portavadie Marina design a special award of our own in recognition of its outstanding quality and the excitement it instils. In the process of the awards, we asked each of the architects of the public buildings in the contest to answer a set of questions for us. One was: ‘What sort of project would you like to build next?’ Brian Stewart (below, left) said: ‘The next stage of the Portavadie Marina’.

There is a sense that each person involved sees this as the experience of a lifetime – where they have had the enormous good fortune to work with a great team on a project with its eye on quality, pleasure, surprise and service.

Henry can hardly keep quiet when Brian Stewart is talking the visitors through the complex. He is simply bursting with pride at the marvellousness of it all and wants to make sure no one misses the tiniest detail – because none of this is accidental.

The builder of the complex, Ian Macnee from Dunoon (below, left), says – with nostalgia already set in, that he will never get the chance again to build anything so glorious. He comes here most weekends for lunch with his wife, just to luxuriate, in something approaching wonder, at what he has helped to create.

The team members’ joint commitment to the experience of their visitors has led them to undertake some major parts of the project much earlier than they need have done.

For example, in the last year they have replaced the former steel caissons at the sea entrance and built a rock armoured sea wall. They did it now because otherwise, a few years down the road, visitors would have found themselves trying to relax beside a marine construction site.

With Carol, Henry and Brian, are General Manager Iain Jurgensen (two above, right);  Guest Services Manager, Kim Atkinson (right above, left in picture); Marina Manager, Robert Kitchin; Mechanical and Electrical Manager, Gavin Slight; and, of course, Ian Macnee, the builder (above left).

It says a lot for what Argyll can do that this magnificent complex has been delivered by a local firm.

It also says a great deal about the planning department of Argyll and Bute Council that they were able to accept the philosophy of the concept and consent to a very unusual building in Argyll’s over-conservative building stock. Who knows what this success may seed?

And the stunned visitors

Pictured above, from the left, are:

• Stuart Green, from Argyll and Bute Council’s Planning Department and a young man who absolutely loves and breathes his job;
• Councillor Ron Simon who arranged the familiarisation visit;
• Brian Horsbrough from the Portavadie Team (his Porsche has a numberplate NHS xxx – spotted by the vigilant Stuart Green. It just happens to be one he’s had for ages and is not an ironic comment on his car’s capability to deliver clients to the service);
• Carol Jagielko, co-owner of Portavadie Marina;
• David Smart from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, who knows parts of Scotland much better than most. He and his colleague, Donald Melville do long distance charity cycle rides which they design to link cafes with the best scones (prompt for Portavadie);
• Mike Cantlay, centre, Chair of VisitScotland;
• Michael Russell, current Education Secretary and SNP candidate for Argyll and Bute at May’s Scottish Election – present as a guest and not in campaign mode;
• Henry Jagielko, co-owner of the Portavadie Marina;
• Iain Jurgensen, General Manager of the Marina;
• David Adams McGilp, Regional Director of Visit Scotland.
• The person out of sight behind Mike Cantlay is Brian Stewart, the architect for the project.

Leading the delegation was Mike Cantlay, new Chair of Visitscotland (centre above and below), the national tourism agency and also the former Chair of Scotland’s first National Park, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. Much of the Park is in Argyll, including a lot of Loch Lomond and the old Argyll Forest in Cowal.

Already making a difference to the clarity, energy and focus of VisitScotland, Cantlay was not only admiring of what he saw (as above) and what it said about ambition in Argyll – but a very good sport.

Towards the end of the visit, making our way outside to go back to the ferry, we passed the lavatories and Cantlay swung left at once to check out what this aspect of the Portavadie facilities was like.  Seeing the opportunity for a fun shot with one of those daft captions, like ‘VisitScotland Chair seeks enthronement at Portavadie‘, up came the camera but Cantlay was on to us, laughed and said: ‘I know just what you’re up to’. End of ploy.

He was accompanied by David Adams McGilp (top, far right), VisitScotland’s Regional Director for the area including Argyll. He commended the Portavadie Marina team for their commitment to quality and made the point that tourism businesses today ‘must exceed expectations’. That won’t be a problem for the Portavadie Marina.

This project was not created from a greenfield site but was a conversion of a particularly unusual kind. The marina was a former dry dock built for the construction of oil rigs when the North Sea was in boomtime. Before the yard was ready, the North Sea scene had changed. There was over capacity for rig building and not a single one was ever laid down at Portavadie.

It is host to the ghost village of Polphail, built to house the yard’s planned construction workers and their families -  furnished even down to a key board with keys on it. The homes were never lived in and they were left, with white goods, kitchens and furnishings as they stood, to swing in the wind when the oil industry music died.

The Jagielkos’ family bought the 100 acre rig yard site 14 years ago. The decision was made by Carol’s father, Sandy Bulloch and Henry, both of whom saw its potential.

The first idea was to use it for fish farming. Then, sailors as they are and with Carol an architect, they thought of a marina resort complex and the immediate advantage of deep water from flooding the dock, a procedure designed to float the completed rigs out and away.

And now the deed is done, with its launch in 2010, usage figures already in advance of expectations and with more facilities and phases in the pipeline – like the lodge, which will be open for Easter and the fabulous spa. You should see the design.

All we can say is that it simultaneously stops your breath and invigorates you. It creates its own world of comfort, light, and ease, a hugely therapeutic place, even on a madly busy and grey working afternoon.

For leisure sailors, it offers a haven of pleasures on the UK’s longest sea loch, Loch Fyne. There is access to Argyll’s Atlantic islands on the west coast through the short cut of the lovely Crinan Canal, via the entrance at Ardrishaig, just north of Tarbert. Or the short run south to Ardlamont Point sets up the choice of a passage over to Lochranza on Arran or round to port to the Kyles of Bute and on to the rest of the sea lochs of the Clyde waterway.

Portavadie Marina has what it takes to become a way of life for anyone. Every possible visitor’s needs have been taken into account and the layout of the site offers privacy to everyone.

We began by talking of the iffiness of the word ‘vision’ but this is indeed a visionary project and its delight in ambition sets a challenge to Argyll to follow its lead. Match it.

The photographs accompanying this feature are by Lynda Henderson of For Argyll, with the exception of the image of Eilean Garbh on the Isle of Gigha which is by copyright holder Patrick Mackie and reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.