Press Room

Lime Wood - The Design

The design story of Lime Wood

The Interior

David Collins Studio (DCS), the design company headed up by star designer David Collins - the interior designer behind some of London and New York’s most opulent and highly acclaimed interiors including The Blue Bar at the Berkeley Hotel, Artesian bar at The Langham hotel and The Wolseley on Piccadilly – has transformed Lime Wood with a high level of refinement and elegance.

DCS worked within a framework of a re-imagined 18^th Century home updating it and reinventing the so-called English Country style. The look is laid back luxury – relaxed but not without attention to detail and the odd eccentric touch.  Local materials such as ash and stone have been teamed with simple, subtle colour shades reflecting the estate’s landscape, creating an interior of quality, integrity and style. The hotel features original marble fireplaces in four different lounges and carefully selected artwork, ceramics and objets to create a welcoming sense of a private country residence that has evolved over timeacter stylewill guests be able to stay the night?sts?.

The accommodation offers a range of stunning rooms and suites.  These range from smaller ‘Cosy’ rooms in the main house which have partition walls that slide open allowing a graceful flow of bedroom into bathroom, to ‘Spacious’ and ‘Generous’ rooms with freestanding tubs to ‘Forest Suites’ with real fires and private gardens.  All rooms are beautifully enriched with natural textures such as hand knotted rugs, stitched leatherwork and silk curtains, and the bathrooms feature personally sourced marble from Italy with traditional nickel fittings for a chic, classical feel.

A skilful blend of styles give each of the public areas a character of their own.  The Bar is an intimate space with sexy contemporary features; leather tables, reflective teal blue panelled walls and a mirrored silver leaf bar give a level of glamour and opulence.  The Scullery is informal, simple and utilitarian, harking back to an 18^th Century country house kitchen, with stone walls and a central open stone fireplace used for roasting meat ‘a la ficelle’.  The dining room is in turn an elegant and intriguing mix of colour, texture and form featuring woven carpets and golden silk curtains.

The Architecture

Architectural designers Charles Morris and Ben Pentreath have re-designed Lime Wood and its ancillary buildings.   The duo have built on a Regency vernacular and have evolved this with a combination of ‘Arts and Crafts’ and classical design. The overall effect is both traditional and of its time.

Ben Pentreath of Working Group Design restored the main house and extensions.  The design of the main house is intended to suggest a subtle evolution – of a rambling, attractive country house that has grown over time. The new entrance façade is a seamless extension of the existing fine Regency house and draws on the original stucco and Portland stone detailing. By contrast, the garden wing, overlooking the formal pools and the Pavilions, has an early 18^th Century character that draws on local examples of handsome red brick Queen Anne architecture.

Internally, the existing building has been re-ordered to provide substantially upgraded accommodation, with a series of classically designed sitting rooms, library and private dining rooms, an elegant dining conservatory and sixteen bedrooms and suites.  The rooms are laid out around a central arcaded courtyard, with stone columns and arches in English Palladian style, fully covered with a glass retractable roof. 

A double height stone cantilevered staircase was a major new feature in the building.

Charles Morris was the architect for the ancillary buildings at Lime Wood (previous work includes the Orchard room at Highgrove).  Morris’ vision is for decoration to be part of the structure – a contemporary demonstration of original ‘Arts and Crafts’ principles. His work at Lime Wood is reflective of a commitment to honest and visually satisfying detail, quality of materials and craftsmanship.

The Garden Lodges were conceived with a view to each having its own identity, distinctive from each other and from the main hotel building.  This is aimed to give the guest the sensation of having "a place of their own" whilst remaining physically and visually connected with the hotel and its grounds.

 The Coach House takes its cue from the original stables which stood on this location.  Adopting a generally modern Arts & Crafts style, the building is dominated by a proto-classical entrance façade composed of an upper loggia over an arcaded entrance leading to a cortile in the Italian manner.  This open and "accessible" entrance, combined with the forecourt, gives the Coach House an invitingly perceptible bond to the Garden Walk and the hotel building.

 The Crescent, as its name suggests, responds to the turn in the boundary where the building meets the forest edge,   gently linking the Coach House to the Pavilions.  It forms an enclave further protected from the outside by a long pergola with a belt of water over which there is a simple boardwalk bridge which is the only direct access.  By its design and choice of external materials, the primary aim was a building which would glow against the greenery of the forest and the garden and which would be light and easy on the eye.

The two Pavilions are intended to be perceived as unabashed eye catchers viewed from the hotel along the axis of the two long garden "canals".  Recognition is given to "nature first, architecture second" by allowing one of the Pavilions to be partially obscured by a fine amelanchier tree which was carefully protected throughout the building works.

The Suites range from duplexes with galleried sleeping areas to forest hideaways that have real wood burning fires in both sitting rooms and bedrooms and private balconies looking into the forest.

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