The renamed Cowley Manor Experimental has a new Wonderland look

"The refurbishment was meant to finish in May and then it got put back and put back. I got called into a meeting," Hodges explains. To his surprise, they advised him to steer clear of lay-offs. "It was completely the reverse. They said: ‘Stuart, you need to look after the staff more and pay them 90%, not 80%.'"

The hotel, which had changed hands in spring 2022, reopened in July after a six-month renovation. For the past two decades, it had been owned by Cambridge graduates Jessica and Peter Frankopan, who established A Curious Group of Hotels in 1999 with its acquisition. The 17th-century house, set in 55 acres of sprawling greenery, had been angled as a luxury getaway for families with young children, where they could enjoy the 15-metre outdoor swimming pool and play games in the crèche. The property even had a former life as adventure holiday resort PGL pre-1999.

The new redesigned Cowley Manor

Now, Cowley Manor has "grown up", to use Hodges' phrase. Reimagined by the Parisian-chic Experimental Group, consisting of Olivier Bon, Pierre-Charles Cros, Romée De Goriainoff and later Xavier Padovani, Cowley Manor Experimental provides a setting for refined fun: brown marble chess tables, a library filled with vintage hardbacks, and village fête-style tents with wooden deckchairs.

The redesign was led by Dorothée Meilichzon, who has collaborated with Experimental Group for the past 14 years. "I think my style and Experimental Group merged in a way: maximalist, French, contemporary with a classic base," she says.

The palette was inspired by the rumour that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland during his visits to the estate in the mid-1800s. Meilichzon offered a stylish collage of textures, periods and colours, juxtaposing square-framed Baldaquin beds and restored oak with bold prints and enamelled lava counters. There are small nods to the novel throughout the property: a pair of mint-green doors lead to a giant shrub, while the Alice in Wonderland-themed carpet, which was designed and produced for the hotel by Hartley & Tissier, guides guests to their rooms.

Some features from the old iteration of Cowley Manor have been upcycled, including the Saarinen tulip chairs by Knoll, which now have patterned cushion covers. "We have reused the existing wardrobe but have upholstered the doors, lacquered the sides, and had a pediment or triangular gable at the top. They were in very good condition so there was no point changing them," Meilichzon adds.

The signature bar, the Experimental Cocktail Club, takes centre stage in the lobby with its accents of Yves Klein blue, lacquered wood and black velvet. Hodges was asked to hire a separate bar manager to oversee its operations, as well as install two Hoshizaki ice machines that would serve the "perfect ice". The bar serves Horlicks Milk Punch, a thoughtful acknowledgement of the building's former owner, James Horlick. It's a space that pays homage to the first Experimental Cocktail Club, which started on an unassuming side street near Les Halles in Paris in 2007. The group has since expanded into a portfolio of speakeasies, restaurants, hotels and spas across major urban destinations, including New York, Ibiza, Venice and London.

Experimental Group's journey

Following the launch of Experimental Group's 18-bedroom boutique hotel, the Henrietta in Covent Garden, in 2017, the team set their eyes on widening their UK footprint. Cowley Manor, which has been in the works for almost two years, marks the group's first property outside of London. The project coincided with Experimental Group's aims to take existing sites – ideally with a minimum of 50 keys in an "amazing location" – and "give them second life".

"We are actively researching [sites across] London, Scotland, the Cotswolds, Lake District and the New Forest," says Padovani, partner and director of Experimental Cocktail Club. The expansion drive comes after a £300m investment from Brookfield Asset Management in December 2021, which has increased the group's buying power, as well as its capacity for contract management. In the past eight months, Experimental Group has also opened 600-cover live music bar Stereo in Covent Garden, which brings its portfolio of bars in London to three; two hotels, the Regina and the George, in France; and beach club Bijou Plage in Cannes.

Padovani adds: "We are now gearing up to open two bars in New York City within the next six months, a wine bar and a cocktail bar. There are already three hotels in the pipeline for 2024 and more to come."

But for now, of course, the team are focused on Cowley Manor Experimental. In its current guise, there are 31 rooms (including four suites), individually designed by Meilichzon, ranging from the ‘Petite Cowley' to the 60 sq m ‘Cowley Manor Suite', complete with four-poster bed, a statement bathtub and a balcony offering uninterrupted views of the lake. Experimental Group is in the process of adding five more bedrooms to the site, which are due to be finished by the end of the year. As a result, the team are still very involved with the day-to-day operations at the hotel.

"There is really good support from head office. I have a weekly call with the chief executive and the project team are still here and supporting us we go through snagging," says Hodges. "The important thing is making sure we get the product, the service and the hospitality right. If you do that, occupancy, covers and revenue will take care of themselves."

The handover of Cowley Manor

Hodges fell into hospitality while studying for his BTEC Diploma in electronics and electronics. He had decided to work as a hotel porter between his studies, which encouraged him to apply for his first full-time role in hospitality at the Hilton Puckrup Hall in Tewkesbury. Hodges recalls being known as the "angel of death" at a point in his career, when his appointment to a hotel would soon be followed by the announcement of a sale to new ownership.

"I went round several properties where I would be overseeing sales, which again is really difficult to do, to motivate staff and keep them engaged while you know the property is being sold and maybe being closed," he explains.

It's a skill he's managed to adapt for the handover of Cowley Manor, which he joined in July 2020: "I had that experience and understanding of how to communicate to the staff. It's really important to keep everyone informed as much as possible so that they know what's going on."

No one was left to their own devices during the renovation period. As well as bi-weekly calls from heads of department, staff were invited to various away days, including the Gusbourne Estate in Kent, and a series of internal promotions were accelerated. "Everyone was ready to come back and excited for the new opening," Hodges says. "When you are renowned for looking after your staff and you invest in them, people want to be a part of that."

Experimental Group provided all the funding for staff training, which meant staff had the chance to experience Experimental sites in London and abroad for free, as well as enrol in courses such as the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Levels 1, 2, and 3.

"My head chef is doing a WSET Level 3 because he wants to expand his wine knowledge to work with the sommeliers. I think [Experimental Group] ignited his passion when we were in Paris trying new wines," says Hodges. "The way they invest in their staff is first-class. They look upon it as an investment in the future." As a case in point, all staff were retained during the renovation.

In fact, certain departments in the hotel took this opportunity to grow their team. Spa manager Charlotte Reid reveals that the C-Side Spa, famous for its floor-to-ceiling glass walls, had been facing a slight "predicament" pre-refurbishment, as there were not enough therapists with a Level 3 beauty and wellness certificate to keep up with demand. With the support of Experimental Group, however, Reid was able to double her team to 18 therapists during the closure. Staff can now offer advanced treatments, including electrical facials, while others were trained in nail art to oversee the newly built nail bar. "We also looked at sustainability and changing the spa brands. We had a really good reaction since we reopened with the Cheltenham-based Monu Skincare," she adds.

Local produce for the kitchen

Working with local produce has been another area of focus for Experimental Group. The team approached Jackson Boxer, the chef behind Orasay in Notting Hill and Brunswick House in Vauxhall, who had been involved in a previous Experimental Group project, Chess Club in Mayfair.

Boxer jokes that he was once again "seduced" by the team into taking on the role of chef consultant at Cowley Manor Experimental. "They knew what they were doing when they invited me. They knew there was no way I would be able to refuse their advances."

Prior to the reopening, Boxer trained eight chefs, who now work in the kitchen full-time, and created the menu for the all-day offering. He says he has always admired the idea of working in a hotel: "Not only are [guests] coming for a meal, they are staying there. This totally immersive environment that you create – which obviously isn't entirely about food, but food underpins it – is a really fantastic way of emphatically communicating the values of hospitality."

Like Meilichzon, Boxer created his own "immersive environment" by working with head gardener David Masters and head chef Dom Hargreaves to rebuild the hotel's kitchen garden, which was demolished 100 years ago. "It's become such a fantastic and proud element of what we do there. The kitchen is so excited because they planted it and now they are playing with it every single day," Boxer says.

The garden is home to "traditional and more obscure varieties of English fruit", as well as vegetables such as cucumbers and courgettes, which appear on the menu as a simple carpaccio dressed with elderflower vinegar, or alongside a creamy dip of whipped stracciatella and green garlic oil.

His dishes, inspired by his travels across manor houses in the British Isles and Experimental properties in the continent, have resulted in a cuisine that showcases a delicate pairing of the "archetype of the English country house hotel with a sense of freshness, confidence and conviviality". He aspires for his cooking to be "immediately approachable, but also with a huge amount of thought and care and attention put into it" – a little bit like Cowley Manor Experimental.

Cowley honey cake

Chef consultant Jackson Boxer introduced several beehives as a "very important first step" in maintaining a healthy garden, which produces flowers for the rooms as well as ingredients for the kitchen.

"It felt like a very sound investment to install hives and, of course, the amazing by-product is the most delicious honey I've ever tasted in my life," he says.

The honey is used as a sweetener for dressings and slabs of fresh honeycomb are laid on the breakfast buffet table every morning. It's also the eponymous ingredient in Cowley honey cake, a sponge cake soaked in a honey, rose petal and orange blossom syrup that is served with locally grown strawberries, yogurt sorbet and pistachio. The texture of the cake underwent a "lot of fine tuning", he says.

"We bake it at quite a low temperature [140°C-150°C], which means it doesn't over-rise, but it doesn't collapse either. It maintains this nice, firm, robust structure, while also having a very well-balanced density which can absorb this incredibly rich honey syrup," Boxer explains. "I thought it was a very happy expression of what we're trying to do."

About Cowley Manor Experimental

Owner Joint venture with Brookfield Asset Management

Operator Experimental Group

General manager Stuart Hodges

Rooms 31 bedrooms (including four suites), soon to be 36

Room rate From £250

F&B 50-cover restaurant, Experimental Cocktail Club

Leisure C-Side spa with outdoor and indoor pool, four treatment rooms, steam room, sauna and gym; garden tours, DJ nights and games room

From the menu

• Raw courgette, sunflower miso, elderflower champagne £11
• Butterhead lettuce, anchovy and Parmesan £14
• Fresh taglioni, Cornish lobster, pickled chilli £32
• Bibury trout, horseradish and watercress £27
• Cowley honey cake, yogurt sorbet, strawberries and pistachio £12
• Warm madeleines, raspberry and Chantilly £9