Case study
How a pair of homes on bare Newfoundland ground became a property listed alongside the Michelin Guide, Tablet Hotels and Mr & Mrs Smith.
In 2020, Amanda Mitchell and Bill Stoikos came from Ontario, fell in love with Trinity, and bought land across the bay. They set out to build three homes in the local saltbox vernacular that would feel as though they had always stood there. Frank LaPointe designed them. The Sweet Lumber team built them.
The homes were never the challenge. The homes were going to be extraordinary.
The challenge was becoming known. Warblers asks $1,200 to $2,000 a night from travellers who had never heard of it, in a province many people are not familiar with, in a town many visit for only a day, with no reviews, and a unique offering. The obvious comparison in a traveller's mind was Fogo Island Inn, a magnificent offering with a decade plus of international press behind it.
A guest who arrives at Warblers understands its value within the first seconds. The commercial problem was every step before that.
Land and an intention. No property, no bookings, little audience, no website, no photography. Nothing a future guest could look at and feel.
Most operators start marketing when they are ready to sell. That is the worst possible moment to start, because it means launching into silence.
Six years of decisions, each made before the work that followed it.
We began photographing in 2020 and kept going through roughly three years of construction across both houses, First Flight and English Sunrise. When launch finally came, Warblers didn't need a photoshoot. It had a library and a story.
We built their first website while they still could not take a single booking. Its job was to establish Warblers as an upcoming luxury offering, so the audience, the search presence and the trade conversations were building while the houses were.
The marketing plan we produced in December 2024 named Fogo Island Inn as the reference point deliberately and defined Warblers as the private, hands-on additive stop for the same traveller. Two experiences in one province. A complementary proposition entirely: two whole homes, complete privacy, and direct access to the Town of Trinity and Trinity Bight communities.
Each film was given a defined job before a camera came out, then pinned in order on Instagram and placed accordingly across the site.
These are long, horizontal, on-site films. They were made to close a traveller who has already landed on the website and needs one more reason to commit, and to give paid campaigns something worth sending traffic to.
A deliberate choice, made in the plan before production. It lets a viewer put themselves in the room rather than watch someone else enjoy it.
Amanda has a marketing background and her own network. She brought in a separate firm for the Webflow build and a specialist for SEO and Google Ads. Our photography and films run throughout the site they built. The work that needed to move quickly, the press page, the guide and day trip pages, ongoing edits, stayed with us. We manage the website content moving forward.
Immersive Journeys carries the closing argument: the access to Trinity that only a stay here unlocks.
Make someone feel the quietude that is available to them at the property.
Show what you are actually booking.
The library that powers the website, the listings, the social feed and every platform they have applied to since.
75
nights booked in the first full season, at debut relevant rates.
Rate increase
Close to a 40% increase of the nightly rate going into season two.
3
platforms now listing Warblers: Mr and Mrs Smith, the Michelin Guide and Tablet Hotels
An operator does not raise a rate like that without demonstrated demand. It is the clearest signal there is that the market now understands what Warblers is worth.
Immersive Journeys passed 20,000 views on Instagram, with 349 likes and 60 comments, from a two and a half minute horizontal film in a format the platform does not favour. Spaces to Savour and Moments followed at 123 and 62 likes. Amanda's LinkedIn post reached the industry audience directly. Reach was the bonus. The films were built to convert on the website, and that is where they earn their keep.
Warblers is now listed with Mr and Mrs Smith, the Michelin Guide and Tablet Hotels. All three were named as target platforms in the December 2024 marketing plan.
Guests are arriving for the design, the quiet and the access to private, local experience providers. Precisely the positioning the plan defined, now coming back to us in the words of the people who booked.
Surround yourself with the best, and pride follows. Brandon and his team at Rugged Rock are exactly that.
Amanda Mitchell, Owner & Hotelier
Five years from bare ground to a listing beside the best-known names in the country. The story was in the telling long before the first guest arrived.
