Hand Picked Hotels

Hand Picked Hotels, set up by financier Guy Hands and his wife Julia, owns and operates a collection of individual and historic country house hotels. Julia, a former lawyer, now runs Hand Picked Hotels.

TIMELINE

  • 1999: Early in the year, the Hands purchase seven hotels from Virgin for around £20m and name their new company Hand Picked Hotels. In November, they buy 11 Arcadian hotels from Wyndham International for £75m.
  • September 2001: A refurbishment programme, costing over £50 million, 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.
  • December 2007: Major extensions completed to Rookery Hall (adding 24 bedrooms, spa and banqueting suites), Rhinefield House (adding 16 bedrooms, meeting rooms and health club), and Norton House (36 bedrooms, banqueting suites and leisure spa)
  • February 2008: Audleys Wood, Hendon Hall and New Hall bought from Bridgehouse Hotels, adding 190 rooms to the group

Number of hotels: 17

Number of bedrooms: approximately 950

  • Audleys Wood, Basingstoke, Hampshire;
  • Brandshatch Place, Fawkham Green, Kent;
  • Buxted Park, Uckfield, Sussex;
  • Chilston Park, Maidstone, Kent;
  • Crathorne Hall, Crathorne, North Yorkshire;
  • Ettington Park, Stratford-upon-Avon;
  • Hendon Hall, Hendon, London;
  • L’Horizon, St Brelade’s Bay, Jersey;
  • New Hall Manor, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands;
  • Norton House, Edinburgh;
  • Nutfield Priory, Redhill, Surrey;
  • Priest House, Castle Donington, near Derby;
  • Rhinefield House, New Forest, Hampshire;
  • Rookery Hall, Nantwich, Cheshire;
  • Seiont Manor, Snowdonia;
  • Wood Hall, Linton, Wetherby, West Yorkshire;
  • Woodlands Park, Cobham, Surrey.

CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE Julia Hands

KEY DIRECTORS

Commercial Director: Ken Arkley

Operations Director: Douglas Waddell

Finance Director: Mandy Newton

Famous quotes containing the words hand, picked and/or hotels:

    “The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
    Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
    Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
    These five kings did a king to death.”
    —Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)

    “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper;
    A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked.
    If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper,
    Where’s the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?”
    —Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers (l. 1–4)

    “Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”
    —Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)