David Murray was so taken by the sherry region on a trip to Spain he opened a boutique hotel there, writes Rose Doyle

Moving from an imaginative venture in Dublin's North Great Georges street to an imaginative venture in Spain's ancient sherry-making city, Jerez, might not seem an immediately obvious life/career route. Not unless you're David Murray and willing to combine a talent for interior design with a passion for old buildings, a flair for catering and the drive to get on with it.

To begin with sunny Jerez, in glorious Andalusia, where Murray has just opened a stylish boutique hotel. Wrapped around a courtyard/patio, in a refurbished house so old its origins are lost in Spain's Moorish past, it has eight bedrooms, two self-catering apartments and a decor aimed at soothing the most harried of souls.

The last was achieved by what David Murray describes as a "a kind of tranquil, old Andalusian style with very muted colours everywhere and lots of lovely antiques." He says it's a fonda, meaning inn in Spanish and close to fundag, the old Arabic word for inn.

The hotel opened ("tentatively!") in April, for Samana Santa (Holy Week), to a house full of guests and much acclaim.

"Everybody loved it: we'd got the word around and the place was packed with Irish people. We stayed open and were packed again for the Feria del Caballo - the horse fair in May."

Word reached the Spanish cognoscenti too and Murray's fonda will be be featured in the August edition of Spain's interiors and style magazine Nuevo Estilo and in the September edition of another such called Mi Casa.

It is, and isn't, a long way from running a catering business in Dublin and that 1990s' venture in North Great Georges Street. The one, you could say, was a stepping stone to the other.

"As a caterer," Murray says, "I did food for the Four Courts before working for Fitzers Catering, where I was Operations Manager and ran events such as that celebrating Ireland's EU Presidency at Dublin Castle."

In 1990, with three others, he bought a Georgian house on North Georges Street. "We did it up between us," he says, "in a way that was quite ground-breaking. Essentially, we turned a 230-year old Georgian house into an apartment block. It had five floors, four over a basement plus a return and including a studio/attic. We divided it into seven units while keeping the building's Georgian integrity intact. I still own two apartments there."

It's a venture he would encourage others to copy, particularly in today's less certain property market.

"Buying and converting an older house is a great way to get the home you want, especially for young, first-time buyers. "

He discovered Jerez 10 years ago, on a trip with Geraldine Fitzpatrick (of Fitzers).

"I liked the place a lot, it's in a lovely part of the world. Geraldine already knew and loved it.

"I came back alone some years later, intent on buying. This was the first place I saw. It's an old merchant's house, in the oldest part of Jerez, the casco antiguo.

"What's here today is built on top of an old Moorish house, there's been a house on the site forever; some of the older beams date to the 17th century.

"It was in bad condition: it was damp, there was water penetration through the roof, deteriorating limed walls - basically it was a huge rebuilding job."

The only thing to be done with such a house was run it a B&B or guesthouse; cue Geraldine Fitzpatrick's return.

"She came on board as my business partner, though she continues to live in Dublin with her family.

"We bought it 50/50, set up a limited company to run the hotel and, with an architect and good local builder, started work in the spring of 2005.

"We took down and rebuilt a brand new top floor and reinforced the existing floors."

Getting things set up was, he admits, "a nightmare. You need a licence to say the building is ready, another to say you're open for business, another from the tourism people. They take forever to get. Spanish people don't, by and large, run small, charming hotels so what we're offering is fairly new. We're getting a lot of Spanish customers from the countryside and from Madrid."

Jerez has a multitude of cultural excitements to offer. "It's the cradle of Flamenco, there's always a festival or feria of some sort going on.

"There's good food, amazing old Arab baths, the whole month of September is festival time and we're 20 minutes from the most amazing beaches."

A double room with Spanish breakfast costs €85 + VAT. Aer Lingus and Ryanair fly to Seville, an hour away.