DARIUS SANAI'S LUXURY TRAVEL VIEWS

What happens when old and new luxury collide?

What does luxury travel actually mean? This is a question I have been examining ever more forensically over the last couple of years as trends in the travel industry have started to collide.

On one side you have the bling-is-best traditional luxe providers, whose customers demand more of everything: gold, silk, marble, kitchens for staff in suites, the possibility to convert an entire floor of super-prime hotel real estate into a summer residence for extended family, the facility to roast a whole lamb inside a room (I’m not kidding). This world, where staff are seen and not heard, and where all that glitters but is not gold is not acceptable, still pervades top luxe hotels and jets from London to Brunei.

Then there’s anti-luxury, or adventure luxury, or whatever you call the itineraries of uber-wealthy thrill seekers who will spend sums as vast as the traditional luxe consumers, on holidays that are unique, challenging, and frequently lifethreatening. A friend who owns a leading travel company tells me one of their best clients, an oligarch from the former Soviet Union, is not satisfied unless he’s doing something nobody has ever done before: zipwiring 01. Norway down a particular What happens when Himalaya with an ex-Special Forces instructor, kayaking through a waterfall no Westerner has seen before in Bolivia, ski trekking in Antarctica. I’ve seen the holiday snaps and there can be no greater contrast to a week at the gold-and–marble temple of the Burj al Arab: the oligarch sleeps rough, often with no tent to hand, wherever they choose to lay their heads, looks filthy and is covered in bites. He looks pretty happy though: free, fulfilled, and a little bit hungry.

And it’s not just the oligarchs who are avariciously consuming this form of expensive antiluxury travel; hedge funders, private equity titans and other leaders of the new financial world who are risk-takers by nature but find their day-to-day too physically restrictive are flocking to experiences like these. I have in front of me some snaps of a wellknown private equity king in a kakak on a tributary of the Amazon, two weeks into a survival trip, looking like someone in the last scene of Deliverance. He paid handsomely for it, and says it was the best holiday of his life, despite the leeches.

It’s easy, though perhaps a bit facile, to dismiss these experiences as ‘horses for courses’; some people like a bit of rough luxe. More pertinently,tastes are developing. While there will always be some for whom it’s the Dorchester or nowhere, for many others of this new generation of unprecedented wealth in the world (20 years ago, nobody knew what a dot com or an oligarch was and China was perceived mainly as a country which exported hard-working, impoverished immigrants to the rest of the world) there’s a learning curve. And for them and their offspring – for we now have the first generation of adults weaned into this brave new world – trad luxe is increasingly so-what. And now we have the infrastructure to reconstruct Dr Livingstone-type adventures, and what’s more travel companies can make a handsome profit on these bespoke adventures, the market is booming.

But not everyone is a thrill seeker, and out of this antithesis of super-luxe and anti-luxe I see a synthesis, to corrupt Friedrich Nietzche. I have even seen it happening to me. Twenty years ago my idea of luxury heaven was a beautifully-run hotel with perfect service, immaculately constructed rooms, and a concierge who could organise anything, anywhere, anytime. A few years after that (and I realise this is a path well trodden) I started tiring of doors being ostentatiously swung open for me, of being wished a great day, of sommeliers dictating what I could drink and servers semi-silently tuttutting when I didn’t finish the free amuse-gueule of chocolate lobster mousse that I didn’t order.

Recently, I entered a hotel belonging to one of the icons of international luxury hospitality. It is a feted and very expensive hotel, in a famous city. I paid my own way, and so expected nothing in the way of the usual journalistic blandishments, and I received nothing. The hotel is one of the world’s great gastronomic cities, as famous for its fruit-based soft drinks as for its snacks and artisanal products. Arriving in-room, hungry and thirsty, I swung open the door to the in-room bar area expecting a selection of carefully put-together local temptations. I was greeted by Pringles, Toblerone, Coke, Fanta, Evian, Sprite, the generic selection of every threestar hotel and airline drinks trolley in the world.

I have wondered since why my disappointment was so brutal. It was nothing to do with the prices, which one has come to expect from hotels like this; and it was everything to do with the poverty of imagination, and lack of generosity of spirit. They charge US$500 for a room, and $9 for a mini-sized Coke bottle, but nobody took five minutes to sit down and say, ‘Hey, people come to this city for the food and the drink, let’s get a couple of brilliant local producers in there’. It would have even made better straight business sense: people feel less ripped off paying for something they can’t reference the price of.

Will the brave new world of technological hotels –which will interact with your Facebook profile and automatically display pictures of your loved ones in a digital frame, and your favourite art above the bed – sweep away this sort of anachronism? I am not sure it is ever that simple.

Which leads me to the synthesis: intuitive luxury, which anticipates ‘social media’ luxury in any case. Drop into Soho House in New York or Miami and you’ll find Kiehl’s cosmetics and some very interesting things to play with in your in-room cabinet. The old, paternalistic service mentality – where staff are simultaneously patronising and obsequious – is laudably missing from new luxury hotels, replaced by an egalitarian honesty – you’re paying to stay here, we’re working here, let’s have fun. I only hope it’s contagious.

The UK is one of the incubators of the new luxury: leading proponents of the new style of travel, like Black and Epic Tomato and Audley Travel, are based here and companies like Black Tomato serve the world. And British country house hotels, long considered proponents of fustiness-intravel, have been revolutionised by a movement which started with Nick Jones of Soho House (that man again!) creating Babington House in 1999. Babington has inspired a new generation of hotels.

Babington, the urban-chic but oh-so rural hotel in Somerset, which turned the rule book on stuffy country hotels upside down, has spawned many imitators and inspired a new generation of rural retreats which are not all trying to imitate aristocratic piles set in the Edwardian era.

One of these is Lime Wood in the New Forest in Hampshire. Just 90 minutes from central London, its setting deep in the woods means it feels genuinely rural and sylvan, unlike some competitors which are within sight and sound of housing developments. Getting the country house thing right these days is tricky. It’s subjective, to an extent, of course, but for me you need the correct balance of three elements: thoughtful and peaceful room design, making the most of the views of the grounds; a sense of genuine escape in the public areas and the grounds (so, no conference groups or suburban car-parks in sight); and service that’s halfway between the Michelin-starred formality of the old guard and the casual cooler-than-thou banter of some new country places – and I don’t exclude Babington from this – that can sometimes grate when you want to unwind.

Lime Wood gets all of these exactly right, which is an impressive achievement. An enormous amount of thought has gone into its creation. Rooms all face the woodlands. Colours are earthy, ethically-sourced mineral water is free, rooms have iPads pre-loaded with childrens’ games, and each fitting and piece of joinery has been lovingly sourced and often handmade to fit, frequently from British manufacturers.

The food, also a vital element as you generally wish not to move from these places once you arrive, is well-sourced, cleanly-flavoured and beautifully presented, both in-room and out: even the room service rump steak had proper grain and deep flavour. The wine list was intelligently sourced and presented; even the Wellington boots for guests were limited-edition Hunter designs. The brandnew spa offered an excellent array of well-executed treatments, with the ‘raw and cured’ bar inside it offering an imaginative twist on the usual spa fare. And all of this was presented without fustiness or formality; only some rather vague directions from a receptionist spoiled perfection. It sets a new standard in country hotels and receives and outstanding 19/20 Lux rating.

Even newer than Lime Wood but with a slightly different brief, so to speak, is the luxurious Coworth Park. As sister to London’s super-swanky Dorchester, Coworth will receive many high-flying international guests, from all over the world (it’s only 25 minutes from Heathrow, making it an ideal stopover location and, you would think, spy rendezvous). Service is, as expected, more formal and its metropolitan flavour means Coworth feels less chilled out.

The house itself is set within hundreds of acres of parkland, with neither golf course nor suburban views (it is just on the edge of London) peeping through, although golfists will be delighted to know that some of the country’s best courses, like Sunningdale and Wentworth, are a few minutes’ drive away. It’s all very grand, although guests may have mixed views on the main staircase, designed by the ubiquitous hotel architects Fox Linton: it’s either brilliantly creative, or trying a bit too hard, depending on your viewpoint. Equally the cuisine can’t be faulted for its imagination or ambition.

Rooms are large and have cashmere fabrics draping the furniture and pop-up TVs; bathrooms are grand-hotel-grand with walk-through showers and freestanding baths. And activities abound: as well as an immaculate tennis court and the golf, the real draw is as an equestrian centre – you and the kids can ride and play polo at the hotel – and also its ultra-modern spa, built as a counterpoint to the Georgian charm of its main buildings, with treatments as lavish and thorough as you’d expect from a hotel owned by the owners of the fabulous Dorchester Spa in London.

We visited during the teething phase, which may explain a bartender who was unable to create a classic champagne cocktail and a couple of service hiccups. Coworth Park is a welcome addition to the stable of near-London luxury hotels and rates 17/20.

To the north of London, and even more convenient for an airport (on which more, below), is Luton Hoo. The house and gardens are genuine historical landmarks, with the gardens designed by the most famous of all 18th century landscapers, Capability Brown. The house itself has an air of grandeur few other country house hotels can match, and it’s plain that the new owners – who converted it into a hotel only recently – didn’t wish to mess around with. Even the stable block, now converted into very spacious rooms and suites with visible oak beams and vaulted ceilings, was designed by Robert Adam.

Luton Hoo is noticeably the most classical or old-fashioned (depending on your perspective) of this trio, and marginally the least luxurious, though many might prefer to trade contemporary cool for floral fabrics and wooden panels given the rich history that comes with the hotel. The main building was built for the Earl of Bute in 1774 and Samuel Johnson noted its ‘magnificence’ in his diaries. The grounds have an expansive symmetry that is enchanting to indulge in.

Perhaps a little less enchanting is the very close proximity to Luton airport: convenience is one thing, but when you can see the EasyJet hangar from the grounds, it does spoil the romance a little. It gets loud sometimes, depending on which way the wind is blowing. Luton Hoo is an enchanting historic hotel and scores a Lux rating of 16/20.

Darius Sanai is Editor in Chief of Conde Nast Contract Publishing.