"A Mouldy Little Hut by the Sea": How Carla Edwards Accidentally Built a Business
When Phil told Carla Edwards there was a beach hut for sale in Holland-on-Sea, she said no immediately.
"That's such a stupid idea," she told him.
He had already phoned the owners and arranged a viewing.
They bought it the following week.
That hut (weathered, mouldy, and affectionately named Stripey) was purchased in 2018 after the family had spent the summer at Holland-on-Sea with friends who owned one nearby. The plan was simple: renovate it, rent it out a few weekends to cover the ground rent and costs, and see what happened.
What happened was that families kept coming back. Guests recommended it to friends. Bookings filled the calendar. And what started with one hut on an Essex coastline gradually became four.
Photo: Carla Edwards
Today, Carla runs Beach Hut Hire Holland-on-Sea - four colourful huts, Stripey, Blue, Lily and Yellow, all located along the same quiet stretch of beach, ninety seconds apart. Guests have travelled from Scotland, Manchester, Seattle and Los Angeles to spend a day there. Every summer, the same families book the same week.
"We've become part of their yearly tradition," Carla says. "And that's really special."
The hut that nearly didn't happen
Before the beach huts, Carla was a freelance graphic designer (as of Jan 2023, she still is) splitting her working day between design clients and the hut business, mostly 9am to 3pm around the school run for her two children. The creative eye she'd built through years of design work translated naturally into the brand she built around the huts. The operational side of running a hire business (bookings, logistics, guest experience) was a completely different set of skills she had to learn from scratch.
The interiors were Phil's domain from the beginning. He designed the layout that works across all four huts: a private changing room area (the detail guests mention most in reviews), a built-in seating area with views of the sea, and a compact kitchenette with everything needed for a day outside. Every hut is identical in structure because, as Carla puts it, it works.
"I wanted it to feel like a sanctuary," she says. "Somewhere you can show up, exhale, and just be."
The renovation of Stripey was a family project… Carla, Phil and her dad Graham with sanders and scrubbing brushes, bringing the little hut back to something worth sharing. Once it was ready, Carla set up a Facebook group and invited friends and family. Word of mouth did the rest.
Instagram came later, and less naturally. "I didn't have a clue how to use it," she says, "so I did some training courses with the amazing Jules Prichard. I'm forever learning with social media." That willingness to learn (rather than either ignoring a platform or pretending to know more than she did) is part of what built an audience online that eventually converted into bookings.
Covid, staycations and the surge nobody planned for
When restrictions lifted in 2020, the business changed overnight. The staycation boom that swept the UK brought a wave of new guests to Holland-on-Sea… many of whom had never considered Essex as a destination before. They came, they loved it, and they came back the following year with their families and friends.
"Ever since, we've had returning guests who bring their families and friends for days out," Carla says. "Many travel hours to get here for a day by the beach."
Holland-on-Sea sits quietly between Frinton and Clacton. In 2015, the coastline underwent a £36 million regeneration project to combat erosion, protecting over 3,000 homes and businesses and creating a five-kilometre stretch of golden sand. At high tide, the beach remains usable - something Carla mentions specifically as one of the reasons it works so well for families with young children.
What she'd tell other women thinking about starting something
Carla is measured about the business case for beach huts. Prices at Holland-on-Sea sit around £40,000, and with council fees, insurance and maintenance, the costs add up. "They're great if you're going to use it regularly," she says.
What she's less measured about is the value of simply starting and staying close to your customers.
"We didn't start with a five-year plan," she says. "We started with one hut, listened to our guests, improved things and gradually added more."
For now, Carla is happy with what she's built. She still does design work. She still does the school run. She opens the huts from April to October and closes them down for winter, then starts again in spring. There may be more huts eventually (perhaps curated seaside experiences along the Essex coast) but the heart of it remains unchanged.
"That one hut changed everything," she says. "I'll always be grateful I said yes to it."