Managing historic properties with confidence

Sinkholes, ghosts, lead-framed windows, and more 500-year-old surprises. Managing a heritage hotel comes with challenges other hoteliers don’t have to contemplate. At Champneys Eastwell Manor, General Manager James McComas reveals why the chaos is part of the charm.

Walk around Champneys Eastwell Manor and it doesn't take long to realise you're somewhere rather special. Oak-panelled rooms, seven working fireplaces, 65 acres of grounds, and even some 140-year-old wisteria that’s still going strong. There are a couple of ghosts too, allegedly, one of whom is partial to sitting on the end of sleeping guests' beds…

Scratch beneath the surface, though, and there's another story. Parts of this building are nearly 500-years-old. It needs to be heated, maintained, staffed, made commercially successful…and maintained a little more. Lead-framed windows need specialist craftsmen to repair or replace them. Water often ends up in the wrong place. And, a few months ago, there was even a sinkhole.

Welcome to the art and chaos of managing heritage luxury.

For my latest Hoteliers' Voice podcast, I visited Champneys Eastwell Manor in Kent to meet General Manager James McComas, to explore what it really takes to run a country house hotel with this much history.

You never quite know what's behind the walls

Eastwell Manor was originally built in the 1500s as a family home, and has been associated with military and royal families throughout its history. Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria's son, lived here in the late 1800s, and his daughter Marie was born here before eventually becoming Queen of Romania.

The property was commandeered by the military during both World Wars, and became a hotel in the late 1970s. Champneys acquired it 10 years ago, and today it has 74 bedrooms, a spa, two restaurants, and a wonderfully sprawling estate.

For James, that history is what makes the property so compelling. “It's an endlessly engaging property. It's an emotional property to work in, to take an ownership for, and to guide and nurture through this iteration of its life.”

But heritage comes with responsibilities. Eastwell Manor is Grade II listed, and maintaining a building of this age is anything but straightforward. “There've been an awful lot of people with their hands in the walls,” James said. “There are things that crop up on a day-to-day basis that take me by surprise.”

The maintenance team carries out proactive checks every morning, while the wider team uses an app to report anything they spot. But with a building of this scale, things will inevitably slip through the net. And sometimes, they are rather more dramatic than a broken window.

“Sinkholes. I never thought we'd have a sinkhole in the middle of Kent, and yet, a few months ago, I had a sinkhole,” James said. “There are plenty of challenges I never thought I’d see in my career.”

His response? Learn from it, find the solution, and move on. “I love the fact that if something's going to go wrong, it's not going to be boring. It's going to be a head-scratcher!”

Preserving the past means knowing when to change it

The challenge with heritage isn't simply keeping everything intact. A hotel still has to evolve.

Since Champneys took over, Eastwell Manor has grown from a relatively small country house hotel into a 74-bedroom hotel, spa, and events destination. Gardenia, the two AA Rosette restaurant, is a relatively recent concept, with menus changing substantially every four months to make the most of seasonal and local produce.

The hotel has also developed its events proposition, with four event spaces and a sailcloth marquee that increases capacity from 85 to 220 during the summer months. Exclusive-use business is still relatively new, but is already generating around half a dozen bookings a year.

For James, working for a private ownership hotel brings useful agility when making those changes. “Have an idea, put a paper together, present it, get it done.”

That's important because a heritage hotel can't simply be frozen in time. The skill is knowing which elements of the past should be protected, and where the business needs to move forward.

The balancing act behind the guest experience

Then there are the people. Champneys Eastwell Manor employs around 150 people, including up to 40 spa therapists, and recruitment is particularly challenging at skilled levels.

But James says his management team is now the most stable and skilled it's been during his six years at the hotel. “It's a lot of humanity to marshal, muster, engage, and keep pointing in the right direction,” he said. “Is it perfect? No, of course it's not. Do we fundamentally have a culture of being decent human beings, and try to employ decent human beings? Yes. And that's where it all starts.”

Managing people is only part of the challenge. Champneys Eastwell Manor is effectively several different hospitality businesses operating under one roof: spa, hotel, restaurant, corporate venue, and wedding destination.

The different guest expectations can collide. James described a summer day around the outdoor pool, where a spa couple looking for peace and quiet could find themselves next to corporate guests on a team building day, while a bride and her hen party sip Prosecco on inflatable flamingos. “The opportunity for a misalignment of expectations is quite significant,” he said.

The answer isn't to choose one audience over another. Instead, Champneys Eastwell Manor has worked to create clearer experiences for different guest groups, including making Sage restaurant a sanctuary for spa guests. It's a delicate balancing act, but one that's commercially important.

Turning heritage into a commercial advantage

The same heritage that makes Champneys Eastwell Manor complicated to operate is also what makes it desirable.

The hotel attracts weddings and events from across the region, and even from London, with guests drawn to the opportunity to spend time in a country house setting. “People will come from London to host events in a country house and feel – slightly cheesily – like they're Lord and Lady of the manor,” James said.

It's a feeling that can't easily be replicated in a new-build hotel. Nor can you manufacture 140-year-old wisteria, seven working fireplaces, or centuries of stories embedded in the walls. And that may be the ultimate paradox of heritage luxury. The things that make a hotel difficult to manage are often the same things that make it special.

Running Champneys Eastwell Manor isn't about eliminating the chaos. It's about learning how to live with it, while continually finding ways to help the property evolve. As James puts it: “We work through it. We find the challenge, we find the solution, and we crack on.”

And perhaps that's the art of managing heritage luxury. You don't control a building like Champneys Eastwell Manor. You learn how to embrace the beauty within the chaos.