Hotel Hit Squad: "A photogenic riposte to the neighbourhood airport" – inside Luton Hoo
I first made the journey to Luton Hoo shortly after its ￡60 million makeover into a luxury hotel, 10 years ago. It was a launch weekend of champagne and fireworks, with a black-tie supper at which a remarkably dull Fabergé representative talked guests through the layered elements of various antique eggs.
This was no random cabaret: Luton Hoo had housed the priceless Fabergé collection of former resident Lady Zia (née Countess Anastasia Mikhailovna de Torby) before it was partially looted and the rest secreted away off-site. Over the course of that weekend I revelled in the Mansion House’s tapestries, marble panels and vast spatial volumes. These were some of the grandest hallways I’d ever meandered in a stupor and a tux.
But in 2017, with the country house experience redefined by Lime Wood, numerous Pigs and Ballyfin across the Irish Sea, does Luton Hoo still perform magic? When I visited last month, I was impressed again by the columned fa?ade, triple-height mirrored rooms, crystal chandeliers and Norma Desmond-on-acid curved staircase in the Mansion. All is as I remembered, although there’s a new corporate/wedding satellite wing nearby – Warren Weir. It’s still all about staying in the Mansion, rather than the vanilla Parkland or Country Club rooms. The only time you want to be on the outside looking in is when you’re walking through the Capability Brown-landscaped gardens. It’s the scale that makes the Mansion so impressive. I can’t think of another hotel interior that makes you look up quite so much.
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Luton Hoo remains a photogenic riposte to the life-sapping horrors of the neighbourhood airport a few minutes’ drive away. I stayed in the Queen Mary suite, with cherubs dancing on the soaring ceiling and wonderfully unusual curved walls and doors leading to en suite separate shower and bathrooms. It also has technology that needs burying next to the late Lady Zia’s golden retriever in the pet cemetery across the lawn. Bluetooth connectivity? Nope. Three different archaic TV sets froze, thrice, and needed maintenance. The Wi-Fi was woeful, supplemented by cables I couldn’t use because I’ve upgraded my Macbook since 2011. I’ve seen this before at former-stately-homes-turned-luxe-hotels – as if any modernity might smash the spell of the stucco. I beg to differ and want some Bose.
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When diamond dealer Sir Julius Wernher bought the 18th-century property in 1903, he had the architects of the Ritz in London give the interior a Belle époque makeover. Before it was taken over by Elite Hotels, Luton Hoo was close to derelict, populated only by bats and film crews. Wilde, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Stanley Kubrick’s last and arguably worst film, Eyes Wide Shut, were made here. For its third act, as a five-star hotel, Luton Hoo has faced aesthetic compromises. The art is reproduction, the bathrooms have twee tiling, and the velvet sofas are more DFS than Duchess of Devonshire. But the paintwork that emulates the original wood grain in the pillared hall is skilled, and the stable block has been made over into a spa and golf club with a lovely glass box of a pool, and original green tiling retained in the bar.
I liked the split cane style and booths of Andy’s Brasserie, and its pressed pork cheek and croquettes even more. Jackets (or ties) are required in the evening at the Wernher restaurant in the Mansion, a space with serious wow factor. It all felt suitably Special Occasion, but without any attitude. Fancified mackerel and beef dishes were executed well and service was winning. My aunts would love it, and yours too. Breakfast was served in the same space – omelettes, sausages and eggs Benedict were all excellent, marred only by an attempt at a flat white.
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Ten years into its life as a hotel, it still has tricks up its sleeve. It still has magic. After a morning spent swimming, steaming and being Swedish-massaged with a friend, we left the spa to head back to the Mansion for afternoon tea, but the sunshine was glorious and there were vacant tables outside The 19th café, with a panini menu that was a good excuse for a bottle of rosé and the last al fresco meal of the year. After our late lunch, we spent the afternoon walking to the lake through some of the 1,064 acres of estate, savouring the autumn colours and looking up periodically to see yet another orange-tailed plane descend into an infinitely less lovely kind of Luton.
Mansion rooms from ￡240 per night, bed and breakfast. There is one fully accessible bedroom in each of the three parts of the hotel: the Mansion House, Country Club and Parkland wing.
? Read the full review: Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire
