Activities

Hand Picked Hotels, which was set up by financier Guy Hands and his wife Julia, owns and operates a collection of individual and historic country house hotels. Guy helped Japanese investment bank Nomura build up a vast pub estate and buy the Le Méridien hotel chain from Compass. Julia, a former lawyer, now runs Hand Picked Hotels.

The hotels have retained their distinctive personality and each has its own business plan and business mix. Managers run each hotel as if it were their own property.

Timeline

• 1999: Early in the year, the Hands buy seven hotels from Virgin for around £20m and name their new company Hand Picked Hotels. In November, they snap up 11 Arcadian hotels from Wyndham International for £75m. Arcadian was founded as a £5m company by Robert Breare in 1999 and was worth £110m when it was acquired by Patriot American Hospitality (now Wyndham) in 1998. Within two weeks of the acquisition, Macdonald Hotels wins the contract to operate the hotels, which continue to trade under the Arcadian banner
• June 2001: Macdonald Hotels’ management contract ends and a massive refurbishment programme, worth more than £25m, begins.
• October 2003: The refurbished estate is relaunched as Hand Picked Hotels and the Arcadian name disappears. By this time, 12 hotels have been awarded two AA rosettes, seven have improved their star rating and four have won Red Star status, putting them in the AA top 200 hotel bracket.
  

Operating data

Turnover in 2003 was £37m (2002: £38.4m).
Net profit in 2003 was £8.8m (2002: £8.5m)

Number of hotels: 14
Number of bedrooms: approximately 800

The hotels fall into the three- and four-star bracket and four have AA Red Star status – Rookery Hall has three red stars and Chilston Park, Crathorne Park and Gwesty Seiont Manor each hold four red stars.
 
Brandshatch Place, Fawkham Green, Kent
Buxted Park, Uckfield, Sussex
Chilston Park, Maidstone, Kent
Crathorne Hall, North Yorkshire
Ettington Park, Stratford-upon-Avon
Gwesty Seiont Manor, Snowdonia
L’Horizon, St Brelade’s Bay, Jersey
Norton House, Edinburgh
Nutfield Priory, Redhill, Surrey
Rhinefield House, New Forest, Hampshire
Rookery Hall, Nantwich, Cheshire
The Priest House, Castle Donnington, near Derby
Wood Hall, Wetherby, West Yorkshire
Woodlands Park, Cobham, Surrey

Number of employees: more than 850

Strategy

“Our vision at Hand Picked Hotels is to create a collection of unconventional, vibrant, modern country-house hotels which offer guests the highest standards of service, cuisine and accommodation, while maintaining a family-run feel to each property.”

Source: company press release, April 2003

Chief executive

Julia Hands

Key directors

Chairman: Julia Hands
Commercial director: Ken Arkley
Operations director: Douglas Waddell
Head of sales: Martin Terry
Chief accountant: Mandy Newton

Contact

The Old Library
The Drive
Sevenoaks
Kent
TN13 3AB

Tel: 01732 471 000
Fax: 01732 471 001

E-mail: enquiries@handpicked.co.uk
Website: http://www.handpicked.co.uk

Commentary

“We are creating a collection, not a chain,” Julia Hands told Caterer in 2002. “We are trying to make our mark and create a premium collection of hotels in the UK. There are, of course, single five-star country house hotels, but not a collection of more than a dozen.”

The group’s meticulous approach delayed the use of the Hand Picked name until the estate had been brought up to scratch. It drafted in designer John Minshaw to retain the hotel’s historic nature while balancing high-tech features with a homely ambience.

By the relaunch in 2003, 700 of the 800 bedrooms had been revamped. The group earmarked another £11m for continued refurbishment in 2004, including a drive to boost the number of spas from five to 12. 

This careful approach won the group the AA Hotel Group of the Year award in September 2004 for its outstanding commitment to improvement while maintaining consistency. The staff have 147 key brand standards to maintain.

A month later, its management scheme, which allows managers to run each hotel as though it were their own, won the group top prize in the inaugural Business Excellence Awards for hospitality and tourism.