Cassel to open Hotel Felix in Cambridge
The owner of the Grange hotel in York is to open a hotel in Cambridge. It will be called the Hotel Felix.
The Felix, due to open in November, will have 52 bedrooms and is in Huntingdon Road, about a mile from the city centre. The hotel is in a Victorian villa, close to Girton College and is surrounded by playing fields. The building was previously an adult education centre.
Jeremy Cassel, the main shareholder in both the Grange and the Felix, said that his second hotel would be more modern in style than the York hotel. It will have a Mediterranean-style restaurant called Graffiti and the chef will be Stuart Conibear, previously working at Le Petit Blanc in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
The Grange manager, Shara Ross, will move to Cambridge to open the Felix.
Others advising on setting up the Felix include hoteliers Jonathan Wix and Gordon Campbell-Gray, proprietor of One Aldwych in London.
Cassel opened the Grange in March 1990 and struggled at first because the opening coincided with the property crash and the Gulf War, but more recently the business has thrived.
He said: "I have always wanted to open something in Cambridge. Even when we were looking in York I was looking in Cambridge and one or two other places as well. Actually, the Grange was very nearly in Newmarket."
The conversion of the 1870s house into a hotel has been overseen by architect Graham Wright, who has added extensions which create a court-yard effect in the centre of the building.
by David Harris
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 8-14 August 2002