Legends off the hall

Ask David Barnard what he wants to achieve with his 12-bedroom hotel, Crab Manor, in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, and the answer is immediate. "I want it to be an oasis, to be internationally famous. I want every single aspect of guests' experience when they come here to be jaw-dropping. I want this place to be a legend," he says.

And it is legends, specifically hotel legends, that Barnard intends to use to make sure the year-old hotel succeeds in fulfilling his ambition. For he has modelled the bedrooms on nine of the world's top hotels and three of the most popular paradise resorts - all visited by him and his wife and business partner, Jackie.

While not exact replicas of the hotels' bedrooms, they are interpretations, or Barnard's romanticised versions of them. The list is impressive: Sharrow Bay, Ullswater, Cumbria; Turnberry, Girvan, Scotland; Mount Nelson, Cape Town, South Africa; Waldorf Astoria, New York; Cipriani, Venice; Raffles, Singapore; Sandy Lane, Barbados (said to be Michael Winner's favourite place); La Mamounia, Morocco; Bird Island Lodge, Seychelles; Hotel le Touessroc, Mauritius (the last two with their own saunas), and the soon-to-be-opened Bora Bora, Tahiti. And the last room - Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons, Oxfordshire - is temporarily the Barnards' bedroom.

Transforming this North Yorkshire hall into a fantasy collection of paradise islands and hotels has so far cost £800,000. About £20,000 was spent on each bedroom, with Barnard designing them all himself. Using antique furniture and original art pushed up the cost of fitting out the rooms, which have a rack rate of between £100 and £120 per night with breakfast.

This investment is on top of the buying price for the manor, which was £360,000 seven years ago, while Barnard's original project, the Crab & Lobster pub a couple of hundred yards from the hotel, was bought 10 years ago for £230,000. "I gave several bank managers heart attacks, but I had to buy the manor. After getting the pub it was a natural extension," says Barnard, who admits he was initially scared of buying the house. "When we got the keys I didn't go near the place for nine days."

Turning the manor into a hotel also took a lot longer than anticipated. Building work didn't start until 18 months ago and is still under way. To show off his plans, Barnard gives a tour of part of the seven-and-a-half acres he now owns with commentary thrown intermittently over his shoulder. "That's where we used to have the swimming pool, but it's been filled in to become part of the garden for the beach huts," he says, pointing to a faraway plot of land. "Here, I'm planning to put in a hot tub for eight people," he says, gesturing to a marked-out area in the manor's courtyard, which houses the Raffles room, "and up there is the next beach hut - Bora Bora," he adds, indicating the roof in the cottages above Bird Island Lodge and Hotel le Touessroc.

Bora Bora, opening around June, will, at least temporarily, mark the completion of the hotel's plans. The next step is to boost guest numbers, so far averaging 75% occupancy per week, giving an average weekly turnover of about £8,000. In keeping with the international flavour of the manor, Barnard has come up with a unique marketing idea: using passports.

Some 10,000 mock passports have been printed at a cost of £3,000 with prizes awarded depending on the number of rooms a guest has stayed in. For instance, for the first three rooms guests get a bottle of Champagne, and for staying in six the reward is £50 to spend in the pub's restaurant. A free one-night stay at the manor is the reward for staying in all 12. But there is an ultimate prize. Fully completed passports will go into a draw, with the winner receiving a two-week holiday at one of the hotels on which the rooms are modelled.

But the hotel is only part of the equation: the Crab & Lobster pub is where overnight guests are wined and dined before retiring to their chosen hotel room.

The pub itself is a charlady's dusting nightmare. Every conceivable space in the 60-seat fine-dining restaurant and 50-seat bar - or brasserie as Barnard calls it - is crammed with "things", such as crocodiles over the toilets. Barnard explains: "We pick them up in antique fairs and second-hand shops. I like them. It adds to a certain cosiness.

"We have all dined in minimalist places, which are good, but I wanted this to be timeless and irreplaceable," he adds, proudly stating that the film, The Old Curiosity Shop, was an influence. Certainly, the customers who flock to the pub seem to like it. They average 1,000 a week in the winter, rising to 2,000 during the summer. Spend per head is about £30 in the restaurant without drinks, and £20 in the bar with drinks, while weekly turnover is about £27,000.

Food is the heart and soul of the operation. With head chef Steve Dean, who leads a 10-strong kitchen brigade, Barnard has created two menus which he describes as "a touch of French food mingled with British and ethnic".

The à la carte menu for the fine-dining restaurant features John Dory fish cake with lettuce beurre blanc as a starter (£5.50), and breast of duck, crushed peppercorns, honey and Oriental stir-fried vegetables as a main dish (£14.50). The brasserie list for the bar starts at £4.95 for tandooried chicken terrine with cucumber pickle and mango chutney, rising to £14.95 for the blue lobster and halibut Thai curry, nan bread and poppadom.

The exotic food gives a hint of Barnard's future plans. He wants to open a hotel on a real tropical island, and call it Zog. Barnard continues: "It's going to be a paradise dream. It's going to be wild, a complete escape. I'm going to find an island somewhere in the tropics, do it up as the ultimate escape and open it from September to April, when I will live there. During the rest of the year, I'll do Europe." And Barnard's plan after that? "Just to keep going," he claims.

FACTS:

Crab Manor hotel and the Crab & Lobster pub

Asenby, Thirsk, North Yorkshire YO7 3QL

Tel: 01845 577286

Fax: 01845 577109

E-mail: reservations@crabandlobster.co.uk

Web site: http://www.crabandlobster.co.uk

Owners: David and Jackie Barnard

Chef: Steve Dean

Covers per week: 1,000 to 2,000

Seats: 60 in the restaurant, 50 in the bar, with two upstairs private rooms holding 34, and outside seating for 160

Accommodation: nine en suite "famous hotel names" rooms costing about £100, three "beach huts" with saunas at about £120 - all prices include breakfast

Average spend: £30 in the restaurant, without drink; £20 in the bar, including drink

Annual turnover: £1.82m across both Crab Manor and the Crab & Lobster

Gross profit on food: 68%

Turnover split: 56% food, 28% wet, 16% accommodation

Staff: 10 kitchen, 20 front of house, including receptionists, managers and domestic staff

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 30 March - 5 April 2000