Laik, verb, Northern English dialect: to play; to be on holiday.
There surely isn’t a more fitting name for a holiday lettings business run from the heart of the Lake District.
The firm was launched in 2020 and offers holidaymakers flexible luxury holiday accommodation in locations around the Lake District, mainly in the South Lakes area.
They also support owners to make their properties stand out in a highly competitive marketplace and are helping to turn more second homes into holiday lettings, reducing the burden on local communities and providing employment for more local people.
Run by young Cumbrian couple Niall Mellonie and Marta Pawlik, both 32, the pair were inspired to start their business after they bought their first property together in Kendal in 2018.
They enjoyed renovating it so much that they began to offer their new skills to their friends who were also beginning their journeys on to the property ladder.
“It really started as a side hustle when our friend needed to rent out his apartment in Bowness at short notice and didn’t have time to make any improvements, so he asked for our help,” explains Niall.
The business now manages 10 properties, employs four people full time, several more part time and has doubled turnover in the last six months.
“Our brand reflects our USP’s – high standards in terms of the interior quality and location of the properties we work with, flexible stays and great customer service,” said Niall.
“We want to offer a recognised standard for our guests. We help property owners fit into our portfolio by helping them to renovate or redesign their interior spaces,” adds Marta, whose passion for interior design and DIY has been the driving force behind Laik’s brand identity – luxurious, stylish, sophisticated.
Niall’s role as business development manager sees him liaise with new and existing clients on adding their properties to Laik’s stock and provides guidance on maximising the potential of each property.
The pair were friends at Queen Katherine School in Kendal before getting together while studying at university in Newcastle 12 years ago.
Niall, whose family are from Ulverston, was a chemistry student at Newcastle University, and Marta, originally from Poland, studied criminology at Northumbria University. They also have a shared love of history and travel.
“I learned how to speak English at school and I was the only Polish girl in sixth form,” said Marta, whose family moved to the South Lakes when she was in her early teens.
After graduation, the couple began travelling, living in Bologna in Italy for a year as well as exploring Indonesia and the Middle East.
The couple’s passion for travel and history exposed them to many different styles of accommodation and they soon developed an interest in applying their knowledge and skills to their own business to start back at home in the Lake District.
“Marta has a great eye for interior design, and we travelled all over the world during our university days, and this has influenced our tastes and style,” said Niall.
“As history lovers, we also care about respecting the heritage of each building we work with and mixing new ideas with older features has really helped us create something original and unique with each property,” adds Marta.
Laik offers two services – a managed property service which includes cleaning and communication with guests; and a design and renovation service, which involves the couple working with the owners to redecorate and reimagine their spaces before being added to the Laik roster of available holiday lettings.
Both options offer a flexible and short stay option for guests – something that can be difficult to find in the Lake District, where three-night minimum stays are often the norm.
“We want people to come and enjoy the Lakes as much as we do – and we know very well the pressures of city life and getting time off work, so offering one-night stays is absolutely perfect for lots of people, especially the younger end of the market,” said Niall.
The business is a win – win for both Niall and Marta, as well as the wider local community.
By working with individual property owners, many of the properties they manage have become holiday lets, rather than second homes, which means a healthier turnover of available accommodation for visitors, and fewer properties standing empty for most of the year.
The flexible and short stay options also means that guests are in and out daily, and the local firms that Laik employs for cleaning and maintenance have a more consistent flow of regular business.
“Cleaning is our biggest overhead, then marketing and advertising, but the success of the business in the last two years means Niall and I have stepped back from doing everything ourselves and we now employ a local cleaning service full time to take care of the laundry,” explains Marta.
“We’ve also appointed a full-time lettings coordinator and quality controller, Ana, and a maintenance controller, Seb.
“These appointments will help us to expand and continue growing Laik into what we feel is a huge potential. We want our holiday homes to be in the top performing 20% of the market for Lake District holidays,” said Niall.
Working, living and planning a future together under the same roof all the time must have its challenges.
“We really compliment one another, we have very supportive families and friends and we’ve known each other most of our lives, so that helps,” said Marta.
What about when they’re not working on the business? How do they get time to sleep, let alone do anything else for themselves?
“We both love the outdoors, that’s why we came back to the Lake District and started our business here. We enjoy camping, a good beer garden, finding new places to watch the sunset, and we’re both massive foodies, so eating out is something we do a lot,” said Niall.
“It’s research,” adds Marta quickly with a grin.
Listening to Niall and Marta talk with such passion for their business and for each other is genuinely heartwarming – if their commitment to the Lakes and to Laik is as strong as their relationship, there is no doubt that their business will continue to go from strength to strength.
