Secrets of the Grove
London's most talked-about new opening is not in London at all. It's about 40 minutes by car away from the West End, 20 minutes from Heathrow Airport - or, if you've got a lot of time on your hands, eight hours by barge up the Grand Union Canal from Regent's Park.
The Grove, in Chandler's Cross, Hertfordshire, which opens next Monday, calls itself London's cosmopolitan country estate, or urban chic moved to the country. It all sounds like something out of Sex and the City, and it's likely to attract media types. The latest Harry Potter movie is being shot just up the road, and there's undoubtedly money on the doorstep. Add "heritage" to that and the mix becomes intoxicating.
The 300-acre estate, the former home of the earls of Clarendon, dates from the 14th century and, over the years, has had its fair share of notability and notoriety. Queen Victoria used to stay in the original house from Saturday to Monday, prompting The Times to coin the phrase "the weekend break".
Prime ministers such as Lord Palmerston and Sir Robert Walpole also stayed there, as did Edward VII. Famed 18th-century painter George Stubbs used to paint in its grounds. During the Second World War, the house was requisitioned as a communications centre for the national railway grid, and later passed into the hands of British Rail as a training centre for technical engineers.
And so it remained, until it was bought in 1996 by Ralph Trustees, the company of Daniel and Stuart Levy, brothers who also own the Runnymede hotel near Heathrow and the Athenaeum in central London.
But a protracted planning application meant that work to turn the estate into a 227-bedroom hotel with golf and leisure facilities was not started until 1999. There were some surprising developments along the way, too. It was a condition of planning that archaeologists had to completely excavate the site. While doing so, they found two intact skeletons buried head to head, thought to be tribal leaders from the Saxon period. They are now in the British Museum. Badgers on the land had to be relocated into new five-star badger sett accommodation, and rare bats and snakes were also moved.
Michael O'Dwyer, who opened the Marriott County Hall in London, was brought in at the beginning of 2000 as managing director, to oversee the project as it developed. The first thing he had to do was to define the vision. Here, there are big plans.
"We want to create one of the great hotels of the world," says O'Dwyer, a genial Irishman who insists that all his staff address him by his first name. Should that sound a bit over the top, he adds: "We're not aiming to be absolutely the best, as there might be 500 great hotels across the globe. We just want to be among that 500."
How does O'Dwyer plan to achieve this? A combination of factors, he explains.
Accessibility to London and Heathrow and Luton airports, as well as public transport infrastructure (Euston is just 18 minutes away), should kick-start things and justify the "London" part of the claim to be London's cosmopolitan country estate. The "cosmopolitan" part of the equation is also critical. Visitors should be able to order the same cocktail as in London's latest trendy bars and eat the same kind of food that people are clamouring to eat in the capital.
You might justifiably think that this isn't so terribly different from other well-known establishments such as Chewton Glen, or even Gleneagles. Where the difference lies, O'Dwyer says, is in the scale of the project.
Vast it certainly is, and you need to go round in a golf buggy to appreciate it in its entirety. There are three restaurants, three bars, banqueting for 850, a ballroom that can cope with 500 (the largest in a five-star hotel outside London), a spa with 13 treatment rooms, a fitness studio, two swimming pools (indoor and outdoor), a children's centre with a day nursery, and an 18-hole golf course. Room rates range from £240 a night for a room to £900 for suites, with an anticipated occupancy of 75% and an expected average achieved room rate of £200 net, once the operation reaches maturity.
But it may take a while to reap those rewards. O'Dwyer is very coy when it comes to exactly how much has been spent on this ambitious project, but industry sources say total spend may even amount to £80m.
Design
The hotel is divided into two parts, the original mansion house and a new wing called the West Wing.
The mansion has three styles of bedroom - classical, contemporary and decadent. Each room is different. All have contemporary works of art and polished original wooden floors covered with rugs. Many of the rooms have balconies, and some have open, working fireplaces. White, brown and beige are the colours in the classical rooms, while the contemporary rooms feature leather screens behind the beds, Perspex tables, chrome, wood and a palette of browns and white.
Four-poster beds fringed with velvet-edged throws, plumed with black ostrich feathers, blend with the black-and-purple colour scheme in the decadent rooms.
The bedrooms in the West Wing are contemporary, with either private terraces or balconies. All are cream and white, with bolder colours such as red furniture. The landscape has been brought into the interior of the rooms by incorporating a backlit photograph of leaves from the estate's trees on cupboard doors, a theme that's continued in the ballroom with a photomural of a forest covering one wall.
Martin Hulbert and Mary Fox Linton of Fox Linton Associates are behind the design.
Key staff at the Grove
Michael O'Dwyer, managing director, from Marriott County Hall.
Michael Helling, food and beverage director and resident manager, from Sketch in London.
Stephen Wheeler, executive head chef, from Harrods.
Tony Hoyle, executive pastry chef, from the Dorchester - he was named Pastry Chef of the Year at the 10th annual dinner of the Craft Guild of Chefs, held in London in July.
Fred Tobin, executive sous chef, from Harrods.
Chris Harrod, head chef, Colette's restaurant, from L'Ortolan, and before that Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons.
Denis Novaria, restaurant manager, Colette's restaurant, from Restaurant Spoon Byblos, by Alain Ducasse, St Tropez, France.
David Coutts, head chef, Glasshouse restaurant, from Harrods.
Alex Dawes, restaurant manager, Glasshouse restaurant, from Windows on the World restaurant, at the Park Lane Hilton, London.
Jonathan Ellse, restaurant manager, Stables restaurant, from Fancourt Hotel and Country Club, South Africa.
Simone Woods, sous chef, Stables restaurant, from the Paramount, Sydney.
Marian Ball, executive head housekeeper, from the Ritz, Paris.
Graham Bradford, rooms division director, from Millennium Hotels, Abu Dhabi.
Penny Dumbleton, Sequoia spa director, from Espa.
Blythe Reid, director of golf, from Fancourt Hotel and Country Club, South Africa.
Jeremy Hopkins, operations manager, conference and banqueting, from Alexandra Palace, and before that the Grosvenor House, London.
Food at the Grove
There are three restaurants at the Grove, all open to non-residents and catering for different markets.
Colette's at the Grove Food style: à la carte restaurant with emphasis on British ingredients; vegetables and herbs from the walled garden
Sample dishes Starters: terrine of baby leeks with Scottish langoustines
Mains: Gressingham duck with foie gras and tamarind
Pudding: passionfruit souffl‚ with coconut sorbet
Seats: 65
Average prices: dinner, £65 per head with wines for three courses; Sunday lunch, £50 per head with a glass of Champagne
Glasshouse Restaurant and Bar Food style: fresh food cooked to order; rotisserie, wok, wood-fired oven and chargrill; home-made bread and pastry display; starter and salad bar
Sample dishes
Wood-roasted loin of venison wrapped in prosciutto
Red braised pork hock with enoki mushrooms
Aged rare breed meats
Breast of veal stuffed with kidney and spinach
Caramel pear upside-down cake; pecan chocolate brownie; pistachio raspberry curd tart
Blackberry dumplings
Seats: 160
Average prices (three courses, without wines): lunch, £24; dinner, £32; Sunday lunch, £31
The Stables Restaurant and Bar
Food style: homely farmhouse food, with a wood-burning oven as a centrepiece of the kitchen; an all-day restaurant, family friendly, with outdoor terraces; children's menu
Sample dishes
Creamed haddock fish cake with aioli
Butternut squash soup with basil cress
Bruscetta with wood-roasted vine tomatoes, olives and prosciutto
Fillet of sea bass with bubbleand squeak and buttered spinach
Toffee apple pudding with vanilla mascarpone ice-cream
Seats: 72
Average prices: lunch, £17 for three courses without wine; dinner, £23 for three courses without wine
One major feature of the Grove is a four-acre walled garden, constructed in 1878 by Edward Hyde, the fifth Earl of Clarendon.
The garden had been neglected and was overgrown when the property was purchased, but was soon set upon by landscape architect Michael Balston, a judge at the Royal Horticultural Society and chairman of the Chelsea Gardens panel. His designs divide the walled garden into four parts, defined by avenues lined with hop, hornbeam and walnut trees. The four spaces will be used for two tennis courts, an outdoor swimming pool, a croquet lawn and an ammonite-shaped potager for herbs and flowers. In the summer, the garden will be used for parties of as many as 1,000 guests under a giant marquee.
The original greenhouses have been restored to provide a caf‚, kitchen, cold greenhouses and hot greenhouses for tropical plants. There is also a sunken box garden, a rose garden, formal gardens and a water garden.
