Hampton Manor reborn as a luxury hotel
The old stomping ground of Sir Robert Peel has been transformed into a luxury hotel. Richard McComb takes a look behind the leaded windows of Hampton Manor, at Hampton-in-Arden.
Without wanting to sound like Kevin McCloud on Grand Designs, the transformation has been miraculous.
The roof has been re-slated, a new heating system has been installed, plumbing and wiring have been overhauled, there is double glazing and the whiffy lino has been ripped up.
The old smell of institutionalised living – this was for many years a care home – has been banished. Tarmac has been replaced with Cotswold stone and gravel on the sweeping terraces.
All in all, Hampton Manor, near Solihull, is looking pretty pleased with itself. The former home of Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the British police service, is indeed an arresting sight.
A dowdy interior has been transformed by a chic 21st century interior design ethos – bold colours, limes and purples, grand drapes, sleek lines. Where once there was institutionalised gloom, there is an abundance of light.
The Grade II listed building, off Shadowbrook Lane in Hampton-in-Arden, is now home to one of the region’s most exciting hotel developments. But it is not a national chain that has moved in, bespoiling the old place with corporate branding. Hampton Manor is privately owned and is managed (a first as far as I am concerned, certainly on this scale) by two brothers-in-law.
The building and its 45 acres were acquired by hoteliers Derrick and Janet Hill in March 2008 but the day-to-day business of running the place is in the hands of their son James and Jonny Malcolm.
Neither has a professional background in hospitality, James, aged 28, having worked in health care management for the NHS while Jonny, who is 39, used to manage the UK’s largest supplier of fresh crab meat. Jonny is married to James’ middle sister, Lorraine.
The Hills previously owned the Pear Tree Inn and Country Hotel in Worcester and were looking forward to a peaceful, not uncomfortable, retirement. But, as James puts it, the quiet life really wasn’t for them.
“My father suggested a sensible amount of his retirement fund being invested in his unsensible son. I started looking at a number of properties and this came on the radar,” says James.
For “sensible amount” of money read £3.25 million, which is what the Hills paid for a sizeable slice of English country estate, its origins traceable back to the Domesday Book, variously passing into the gift of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I.
Then there has been the outlay on building work and intricate restoration, not to mention the furnishings and redecoration. The total bill, so far, stands at £5.5 million.
There are also plans for a conference/banqueting venue which will be built into a natural dip in the land, obscured from view and topped off with an extravagant water feature.
In anyone’s books, this is big bucks but the hotel’s location – a short hop from the NEC and Birmingham International Airport and five minutes’ drive in a Bentley from the West Midlands’ motorway network – means the investment is far from being a wild investment.
“He is a very astute businessman and is very clear on cost control,” says Jonny of Derrick Hill, his 65-year-old father-in-law.
“He is very risk averse,” adds James.
Looking round the hotel’s open lobby area, the heir apparent adds: “If he was not grey already, he would be now. But I think this month has given him some relief because the figures are starting to stack up.”
The hospitality industry, so prone to economic fluctuations, can be a cruel mistress but you get the idea that the Hills are unlikely to get their fingers burned.
People probably questioned Derrick Hill’s wisdom of spending £300,000 on the Pear Tree Inn, then a small country pub and restaurant, when the family bought it in 1985.
But when they sold the business in 2004, having expanded it into a 24-bedroom hotel and conference centre, they netted £5.6 million.
Hill Snr is taking a back seat with Hampton Manor, although James says his father is keen to get his hands on gardening duties.
