Chuck out the chintz
The country house hotel interior, once a bastion of chintz and lace, is changing. The modernisation of London's hotel interiors may have begun with the Halkin nearly seven years ago, and since been copied and reinvented at the likes of the Hempel, the Metropolitan and, more recently, One Aldwych, but away from the city centres the predominant theme has been chintz, lace and gilded ornamentation.
But there are pockets of innovation in the countryside, and the one to catch the most attention must surely be Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons. Indeed, Sir Terence Conran in his guest editorial for Country Life in April complimented the light, comfortable modernity now apparent in the conservatory and the public lounges. But owner Raymond Blanc has not stopped there, and the investment of £5.5m has not only renovated the kitchens but added 12 new bedrooms, too.
"The problem with the country house hotel generally is that everyone has been there and done it," says Simon Rhatigan, general manager at Le Manoir. "If you want to make a product and customer experience worthwhile you must do it differently. Our guests have been to nice hotels before. The question for Le Manoir was how to make our rooms an experience beyond the ordinary."
Fantasy room
The answer comes in two of the newly finished rooms. Set in a converted barn to one side of the main house, the Opium Room is the ultimate fantasy room. A circular arch divides the lounge from the bedroom, which itself is framed by a wooden arch. Chinese red silk drapes hang above the king-size bed with satin-covered pillows, and there is a private Chinese garden outside. At £435 per night it is Raymond Blanc's answer to the honeymoon suite, but above all it offers what Rhatigan terms "clean minimalism".
Or there is the Ana‹s Suite, with wide horizontal strips in opalescent shades of lime green painted around the walls. Above the bed is a 1930s Charles Rennie Mackintosh-style mirror, and a see-through fireplace in the salon. "This room is the quintessence of modern classicism - it is clean and not at all what Mr and Mrs Average expect in a country house hotel," says Rhatigan. Indeed, these two rooms alone raise the question of whether a hotel with a reputation such as Le Manoir is not pushing the boundaries too far.
Rhatigan admits Opium and Ana‹s will not be to everyone's taste and he would be unlikely to let them to first-time guests at Le Manoir. But he insists the innovation is necessary to move forward.
"You find young people in their late 20s and 30s at Le Manoir. Those are people with sophisticated tastes measured internationally - we are not just competing in the UK market," says Rhatigan.
Perhaps safer for the average guest is Manon, designed to offer a French rustic feel. In the attic of the building, the original timbers are exposed and simple check-print bedspreads and cushions, a God in wood-burning stove and a bathroom with a floor of rough terracotta tiles complete the picture. Or there is Amethyst, with its lavender walls, large floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the courtyard, and private dining area. This, believes Rhatigan, is what guests expect in the country house hotel, but it is still clean modernism.
The rooms are all Raymond Blanc concepts, interpreted by interior designer Emily Todhunter, who believes the look is a mix of the classical and the contemporary. "Le Manoir's rooms are a return to all that is good about the English country house - large rooms, soft light, comfortable surroundings - and taking it into the 21st century," she says.
This modernisation has not come cheaply, as one might expect for a hotel such as Le Manoir, and the average room has cost £40,000 for the fit-out alone. The project as a whole is destined to put a further £1m on the £5m turnover of 1997-98. Rhatigan estimates the average achieved room rate will be £250 for the 1998-99 financial year - up from £218 in 1996-97, the last comparable year, as room rates have been discounted during the building process.
Blanc is not the only one taking chintz out, however. Olga Polizzi, Sir Rocco Forte's sister, has spent more than £2m on renovating Hotel Tresanton in St Mawes, Cornwall (Caterer, 6 August, page 64). Here, too, is a place where habitués of London designer hotels will feel equally at home.
But is it all too easy for big names like Blanc and Polizzi? "For us it is easier - we are a significantly large name with a reputation that people trust. If you are running a small hotel in the Lake District you may not have the confidence," concedes Rhatigan.
However, there are those with confidence. Take Jeff Hind, proprietor of the Staincliffe hotel, Seaton Carew, Hartlepool. Hind bought the Staincliffe for £600,000 and has invested £500,000 to date in fixing up the restaurant, conference room and 16 of the 24 bedrooms. While the restaurant's Gothic theme is quirky, it is in the bedrooms that innovation on a budget has paid off.
Helen Morris, designer and partner at the Stencil Library, Stocksfield, Northumberland, has come up with different themes for each of the rooms, using stencils on the walls to lend a homey touch.
Stencilling may summon images of do-it-yourself decorating, but the rooms are a far cry from the chunky, floral-designed wallpaper with matching bedspreads and vinyl headboards with built-in 1970s stereos which used to be in place. There's the Wedgwood Room in varying shades of blue, while the Colonial Room has animal-print pillows and exotic bird stencils, muslin draped over a simple four-poster construction inspired by the fishermen's stilt houses Morris saw in Sri Lanka. All that is missing are the mosquito nets. The Floral Room, in yellow, offers a feminine touch, with lilac stencilled flowers; and the Nautical Room has a single bunk bed above the desk - rope stencils and yachting prints complete the theme. For the more adventurous, the Japanese Silk Room offers walls in black silk with stencilled chinoiserie panels and red silk swathes with cinnamon colours draped from the ceiling around the bed.
Imagination
"I did the rooms within the budget confines using a lot of imagination and making them different. Jeff didn't want them to feel like hotel rooms, and some of them are like my home - the Gothic turret and Japanese silk rooms, for instance," says Morris.
In some cases the existing furniture has been painted, and in others new furniture has been bought to fit in with the room. By the time Hind has finished he will have invested a total of £750,000 in the hotel.
By December, he hopes to have completed the bedroom refurbishment, which includes creating a large family suite and a guest lounge on the first floor.
Rack rates during the refurbishment have been £55 for a double and £45 for a single, but Hind will increase the rates on the suites to £75, and £55 for the other rooms. Given the location, he feels this will offer affordable luxury to visiting business people.
Location is hardly a problem for the St Enodoc hotel in Rock, Cornwall. Situated across the estuary from Padstow - of Rick Stein fame - the hotel has also had the Emily Todhunter treatment.
Tim Marler, his sister and father have spent more than £2m buying, gutting and refurbishing the 25-bedroom hotel since February 1997. Tim had lived on the east coast of the USA and has drawn inspiration from some of the hotels he saw there. "They were clean, fresh, and colourful - not country house hotel and not too traditional in the outlook," he explains. But, he argues, St Enodoc is not meant to be trendy, but timeless. Here, too, Todhunter's skills have been put to the test, only this time at £5,500 per bedroom.
"Here the brief was young families at a beach holiday in an informal surrounding," she says. There's a room for gumboots, games rooms, toy boxes with rope handles for children, wide corridors and bright colours in fabrics and furnishings.
The hotel opened in June and had a £200,000 turnover for the summer months. Marler is cautious about projecting, but hopes to average £45,000 per month in the first six months. Rack rates vary according to season, but a double bed and breakfast is £120, a suite sells for £150 and a single for £80 in the high-season summer months.
