THE MONARCH OF THE GLEN
| Date | 01 November 1981 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057222 |
| Pages | 22-23 |
| Published date | 01 November 1981 |
| Author | Alec Snobel |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
CONFERENCE VENUES
THE MONARCH OF
THE
GLEN
by Alec Snobel
How Martin Skan built a
centre of excellence
out of an old house in
the New Forest
Everything about the Chewton Glen
Hotel is true-blue British...except its
cuisine which is French. All staff are
the most dedicated professionals...ex-
cept the boss, the monarch of the
Glen, who is a gifted amateur. And
each department runs with effortless
ease...except behind the scenes where
enormous effort is invested.
What better formula for success?
Chewton Glen has certainly achieved
this,
confirmed by an array of
honours like General Amin—the
Egon Ronay Gold Plate Award for
Hotel of the Year, with two stars for
cooking; a Michelin Star with four
Red Turrets; two AA Rosettes with
four Red Stars; and last year its
young French chef Christian Delteil
won first prize and a gold medal in
the coveted Mouton Cadet competi-
tion—all of which means it's one of
Britain's finest hotels for food, drink
(250 choice bins on the wine list) and
comfort outside London's Park Lane
palaces.
We drove to it through the New
Forest, 92 square miles of scenic
greenwood little changed in flora and
fauna since William Rufus died in a
hunting accident there in 1100. Wild
deer and ponies still roam freely and
the laws and lore are rooted in
history.
It is a superb area to ride or walk,
play golf at Brockenhurst,
Broadstone, Parkstone or Ferndown.
Or sail from Lymington to the mecca
of all yachtsmen, Cowes on the Isle of
Wight. It is full of quaint villages
with their old pubs and rivers where
some of the best salmon in England
are caught.
In the middle of all this at New
Milton in Hampshire, is the hotel
itself,
an early 18th century manor
house originally belonging to the
Elphinstone family. It was here that
Captain Frederick Marryat wrote his
classic novel Children of the New
Forest. When Martin Skan came
across it in 1966 it was a mess, and
only his ignorance enabled him to see
the potential in it.
... a sort of crazy,
love at first-sight idea
"I knew absolutely nothing about
running a hotel operation," he told
me.
"All I had was a plan to settle
somewhere around the New Forest
and I was on the look-out for a
business that would interest me.
Chewton Glen was a sort of crazy
love-at-first-sight idea. The building
was already a hotel, with eight
bedrooms and one bathroom. Today
after 15 years of uncompromising ef-
fort there are 53 bedrooms and three
suites,
each with a private bathroom,
and public room and a restaurant as
good as any country hotel in Britain.
"With its low ceilings and its
general shape, the building already
had its own ambience from the start.
What I had to do through decor and
attention to detail was to give the pay-
ing customer a kind of personal warm
and immediately cosy surroundings in
which to relax. My wife Sally helped
me greatly with this. We planned
separate schemes for each room. We
relied on our instinct and on our own
feelings for colour and design to pro-
duce the most elegant, restful and un-
pretentious blends from Warners,
Sanderson and Boussac patterns.
"Every room had to be something
special and it was not only the colour
schemes but the minutest details—
like the names on the doors, each one
a title of a Marryat book; like the
padding of the wardrobe doors with
their Boussac fabric and the
chandelier type wall lamps; like the
Roger et Gallet soap in the bathrooms
to the shower caps and the Badedas
for the bath."
Attention to detail is still the
hallmark of Chewton Glen. We noted
the iced water always fresh in the
vacuum flask on the dressing table in
our room, the welcoming mini-bottle
of sherry and a greeting card from
45-year-old Mr Skan. In the
restaurant, we appreciated the fine
Wedgewood china, the Dartington
glassware, the silver plate cutlery, the
Ffolkes cartoons on the wine list.
Even each salt cellar and ashtray and
coffee pot reflects good taste.
As the hotel became established as
a luxury retreat, the management
realised it could also offer a useful
service for senior businessmen,
somewhere to get away to discuss
their affairs, released from the
pressures of their working environ-
22 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT + DATA SYSTEMS
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