By Andrew Macdonald
Earlier this week I carried a news scoop noting the sale of Oceanstone Resort, located about five minutes from Peggy’s Cove.
Tim Moore and his daughter-in-law Lizzie Dodds-Moore exited ownership of the resort after a 10-year successful run.
They have sold it to the resort’s CEO, Dean Leland, who held 30 per cent equity and now is sole owner following Monday’s sale.
Oceanstone Resort is a well-known commodity in the Halifax business community because the Moore-Dodd operation made it a corporate retreat destination.
But the resort has also become famed over the last decade as a wedding venue for couples from Halifax, and across the region, and as well the wedding brand has some appeal among ex-pats out West.
For this follow-up story, and the news scoops are elsewhere in this edition on the takeover, I caught up to Lizzie Dodds More, who is married to Tim Moore’s son Chris Moore.
I was particularly keen to talk to Lizzie about how the family operation was able to achieve strong brand name recognition among corporate and wedding couples.
Firstly, Tim Moore is a serial entrepreneur. Back in 1972, Moore founded AMJ Van Lines, and until selling in 1999, he built that moving company into the nation’s largest mover of people and corporations. He left AMJ in 1999, and went on to found Premier Van Lines, which today is also a top national force in that industry.
Tim Moore and his wife Bernadine own this Chester Peninsula mansion
In a news earlier this week announcing the Moore and Dodds family sale of their stake in the resort to Dean Leland, they labelled Oceanstone Seaside Resort as a premier resort destination.”
It was acquired in 2011 by the two families. “As soon as we saw Oceanstone, we knew it was a magical place, a hidden gem,” says Lizzie Dodds-Moore, who held 35 per cent equity at the time of the sales deal.
“We had a plan to create Oceanstone into a nationally recognized resort, a flagstone property here in Nova Scotia. I believe that we did that,” says Dodds-Moore.
Oceanstone Seaside Resort has been consistently recognized nationally for weddings and was among the Top 5 places in Canada to get married, as recognized by the Canadian Wedding Industry Awards and by Elle Canada.
“In 2018 Oceanstone received the Best Business Award by the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia. This award recognizes the efforts in outstanding service, dedication and commitment to the industry,” says Dodds. “What started as a small family business has grown with the addition of new partners over the years. Most recently Dean Leland bought in a few years ago, and has taken the reigns to continue to showcase the resort throughout the province and nationally.”
“Oceanstone has certainly evolved over the years and I am proud to have worked alongside so many talented and amazing team members,” says Tim Moore. “I know we made Oceanstone a well-known name. When we bought it 10 years ago, it was not well known. Lizzie and the team have done an excellent job at marketing it not only in the region but afar as well. I can’t go anywhere these days without someone asking me about Oceanstone.”
Lizzie studied at Mount Saint Alison University, in Sackville, New Brunswick. She is the daughter of former long-running St. Mary’s University president Colin Dodds. Her mother Carol is an educator, too, and her brother James Dodds is an executive at TD Bank Group in Toronto.
Before Cathy Jones bought in Chester, the most famous TV star to annual visit Chester had been Jeanne Beker, right, who is often hosted by Chester Peninsula’s Tim & Bernadine Moore. In this file photo the host of a TV fashion show is pictured with Lizzie Dodds Moore, who is married to Chris Moore.
Lizzie once served as chief of staff to Peter van Loon, a cabinet minister in the federal government of Stephen Harper, and also was a spokesperson at the Port of Halifax.
The Dodds family has Tory ties and now brother, James, heads the fundraising committee for federal Tory leader Erin O’Toole.
The transformation of Oceanstone Resort into a household name on the local and national wedding scene would make an excellent marketing study for university business students, so I chatted with her to understand the success of the two families at the Indian Point resort
Dodds-Moore exits as co-chair of Oceanstone, and until 2018 was its president until Dean Leland came in that year under a managing director and CEO contract.
Question: How did you take an unknown resort in 2010 and turn into a well-known brand in the corporate and wedding community?
“I think it is always multi-faceted. You have your traditional avenues like advertising in your traditional wedding magazines not only in Atlantic Canada, but across Canada. You have the wedding trade shows, and you have to go to them, a lot of branding companies do them.
“But I think we also took it to the next level in terms of wanting to really view it as family. Oceanstone is family, so when people came to look at the resort they got that sense right away.”
Of course, the best form of advertising is word-of-mouth recommendations.
“There was a lot of word of mouth,” notes Dodds-Moore.
“We did a lot of weddings out West over the years, right from the beginning. People might have moved out West, but their roots were in Nova Scotia and one side of the family still lives here, or they remembered growing up in Nova Scotia, so they wanted a connection to the province,” she explains.
Sometimes they would leave feedback on hotel recommendation websites. That’s when Dodds Moore deployed a hands-on approach.
“I’d pick up the phone and call (a prospective) customer immediately, so it was that personal touch right away.
“It was a multi-faceted thing, and everyone who came to that wedding then went back to wherever they were from — some people were from Europe, the United States, and from the region — and talk to their friends and family and say, ‘You would never believe this special spot we married at. We had the whole resort for a weekend, it was like a little village for the weekend’.”
It also helped that Dodds-Moore at the time of buying Oceanstone had been married for just one year to Chris Moore, Tim Moore’s son.
“I was just recently married a year, so there was that connection right away (with wedding customers). I think that really helped couples, especially those who were planning from afar – just knowing we took care of everything at Oceanstone. So it was a one-stop-shop,” adds Dodds-Moore.
Lizzie Dodds Moore held a 30% stake in Oceanstone Resort. She was co-chair of the company. (The Notebook photo).
She says the resort began in 2018 to pay wages of $15 an hour, well above the government’s minimum wage, to employ “an amazing team.”
“The team would come out and do a site visit with a couple from out West, or do a taste test with our chef, and then they were blown away by the team and everything we had to offer.”
That meant the couple did not have to even worry about enough chairs or tables, it was all provided by the resort, she says. “We even had decor items we were happy to lend people, and so, the wedding couple would say, ‘Oh, we don’t have this’, and we would say ‘No it’s OK we have it’.”
The cost of a wedding package varies from season to season but can run up to $6,500. Most couples booked the whole weekend.
Some wanted a day wedding, but Dodds-Moore and staff would talk them into a two-day event to better appreciate the ambience of Oceanstone, whether dining in two kitchens, or gathering around the outdoor fire pit, or just taking in the seaside sights and tranquillity at the property.
“They would spend the whole weekend. There are not a lot of venues that have that feeling or ability to rent a whole resort to that couple, and everyone became family immediately.
“A lot of times families don’t know each other when they are coming to a wedding and the day of the wedding there are a lot of emotions. But because our guests came on a Friday, people were a little relaxed, gathering over a bonfire, or doing the casual rehearsal, so by the time the wedding happened the next day everyone knew each other,” she says.
The two-day weddings were part of the brand that the resort plugged and still does. “A lot of people loved that.”
The resort also relied on amazing vendors such as wedding photographers, cake makers and florists. “We really worked with our vendors and a lot of times they would recommend us to their own customers who were looking for flowers or cake. Everyone talks and our vendors were amazing,” adds Dodds-Moore.
“Of course, we had the awards” from wedding magazines. Elle Canada recommended us as one of the five best wedding venues in Canada, and that was huge.” The resort sharing top billing with venues in Toronto, Montreal and British Columbia.
“I spent a lot of time talking to wedding couples that first year and that really paid off. I still keep in touch. They will reach out when they have a baby, a new addition to the family, with a puppy. And some of them live in Nova Scotia and I stop them on the street and we have a big chat,” she adds.
“It is that continued family connection. Chris (her spouse) was the bartender the first year. My mom did the weddings, and Chris’s mother Bernardine was there working. We were all there helping out, especially that first year, and it was lovely.”
There are seven cottages at Oceanstone and 25 units in total, after the Dodds-Moore massive renovations. The resort can hold a wedding party of up to 150 people, with rented tents popping up on the property, while inside the weddings were more intimate.
“We are typically 100 people, 110 guests inside. And a lot of times people would change their numbers to have the wedding at Oceanstone,” she adds.
Dodds-Moore will continue to work at Oceanstone for a transition period, and says it is early days to think of another business opportunity. Her husband Chris, 39, runs Moore Suites.
Lessons she took from working closely in the family ownership at the resort and especially with her father-in-law, Tim Moore is “that he wants to do everything like yesterday, and I like to look at things, analyze things, so Tim really helped me to jump at opportunities. It was a really good balance, Tim and I worked well together.”
Corporate Retreats
The other significant aspect of Oceanstone that the families developed is the strong recognition in the Halifax corporate world.
“We have repeat corporate business all the time. They love it because it is quiet, it is secluded. It is 45 minutes from the city and because of that, it is great, because it is a little bit far that you can’t run back to Halifax to take so-and-so to soccer, but it is close enough if there was an emergency they could get back very quickly,” she says.
“When people come to Oceanstone they disconnect and focus stronger as a team on a corporate retreat, but they are not driving far to get here.”
The resort “has great wi-fi, which really helped for a great corporate retreat, and great accommodations. You can’t beat a bonfire for a retreat where people can focus and get on with their business strategy sessions.”
