Originally the country home of Lady Anne Barnard, the Vineyard Hotel has undergone many changes and improvements since 1799. Evolving from a countryside cottage, to urban residence and hotel, Lady Anne’s journals document her struggles with renovations, upholstery, joinery and waterproofing – issues the hotel can thankfully now avoid, due to a dedicated team of builders on-site.
The Vineyard Hotel is currently completing its latest redesign and upgrade of 41 rooms, in a process carefully managed by well-known architects Revel Fox and Associates, who have overseen most of the Hotel’s physical expansion over the past two decades.
Comments Ariadne Petousis, part of the hotel’s Arts & Décor team, “We believe Lady Anne would have approved of the historic inspirations we have showcased during this process. We have tried to incorporate subtle nods to the property’s history throughout all aspects of the process – for example, we have used a rare sketch of the Vineyard landscape from 1833 on the linen covering the new headboards. ”
While elements with an ‘historic’ provenance are a prominent global interior design trend, “the design scheme is far from ‘period fussy’,” says Liza Wyborn of Les Harbottle Design, who is responsible for the interiors of each room. “We’ve created warm, inviting, contemporary spaces with abundant light, neutral tones and interesting texture accents. We have included marble, mohair and earthy Hard Pear wood alongside sleek modern lacquer finishes, showcasing both man-made and natural elements.
While the new rooms are warm and inviting, the gleaming en suite bathrooms offer a sense of absolute luxury – with a modern oval bath, floating vanity, individually crafted shower floors and LED-lit mirrors. Says General Manager of the Vineyard Hotel, Roy Davies, “While we embrace our heritage, we are also keen to show that we are not afraid to ‘move with the times’. We have included some state-of-the-art technical innovations in these new rooms – a personal highlight is our new flat screen TVs, which have a feature that offers easy-click access to on screen Wi-fi and useful ‘apps’ – like the weather, Facebook and You Tube. For those who need to be up early, there’s also a wake up/sleep-time call facility – ensuring you never miss breakfast – a quick-dial index of hotel services and a channel of informational programmes about the hotel.”
In line with the hotel’s resource-saving practises, rooms will also include a new card-key system, which allows remote front desk access at guest check-in to control electrics and aircon, and which also power down automatically when a guest leaves the room.
These rooms are due to be completed ahead of the 2015 / 2016 high season.