Hospitality entrepreneurs recently bought property in Carolina Beach with plans to build a boutique hotel.

Cove House LLC, managed by Robert Rosenberg and Carolina Beach resident Kaylie O’Connor, paid a little over $1.7 million for parcels that include 207 N. Lake Park Blvd., which holds the vacant Welcome Inn boarding house and a residence.

O’Connor said she and Rosenberg, known for creating The Hive Boutique Hotel at 505 N. Second St. in downtown Wilmington, want to build a Carolina Beach hotel that could have 42 rooms, a pool and a rooftop bar.

“We are planning to demolish the existing buildings fairly quickly, but we are also giving the Carolina Beach Fire Department the opportunity to use the buildings for training before we do,” O’Connor said Thursday, adding that the firefighter training will not involve actual fire but rather ladder and hose practice.

As she and Rosenberg continue working toward the hotel, the property will serve as parking for the beach town’s central business district (CBD).

“We’re hoping that we have everything in place to start the hotel project sometime in 2024 but it’s a good long time period for permitting and getting construction documents together,” O’Connor said. “So instead of the property just sitting vacant, we're implementing a parking lot temporarily.”

The temporary parking lot will only cover the parcels that are in the town’s CBD. As part of the deal, Cove House LLC also purchased 204 Harper Ave., 205 N. Lake Park Blvd and 209 N. Lake Park Blvd.

Eian Lundy, a real estate agent with BlueCoast Realty Corp., represented Cove House LLC in the transaction, while Hansen Matthews of Wilmington-based Maus, Warwick, Matthews & Co. represented the seller, a Strickland family trust.

In addition to Lundy, O’Connor said she’s “thankful for our architect, JC Woodall, civil engineer, Charlie Cazier, and the town of Carolina Beach for their help and support with both the conditional rezoning process and the plans to implement a temporary parking lot, as well as our lender, Customers Bank.”

O’Connor and Rosenberg have two other Wilmington properties where they’re considering future hotel projects – 216 N. Front St. and 717 Market St.