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HOSPITALITY & SPA


The environmental performance of the hotel was a key consideration


GREEN HOUSE The family behind Ecover cleaning products has spent £10.5m


refurbishing its Cotswolds hotel, and is bringing the surrounding estate to life. Chief executive Andrew Grahame tells us more


environmental considerations were always going to be key. Dormy House was bought in 1977 by the late Danish entrepreneur Jørgen Philip-Sørensen. It’s part of a family of companies that includes green cleaning products brand Ecover, all controlled by the Philip-Sørensen family today. “Sustainability is utterly key to the Philip-Sørensen family. They oversee Ecover and it’s written into their prod- uct statement about what they are,” says Andrew Grahame, chief execu- tive of Dormy’s umbrella company Farncombe Estate. “It’s also personally important to me – I worry about what I leave behind for my daughter and her family.” Grahame, who was previously man- aging director of Goodwood Estate


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hen the owners of the Dormy House Hotel in the Cotswolds decided to try and turn it into one of the top leisure hotels in the country,


(with responsibility for the Goodwood Hotel, Golf At Goodwood, Goodwood House, The Kennels clubhouse and the motor circuit catering), was


brought in to oversee a £10.5m refur- bishment project at Dormy House. Of that budget, £5m was spent on updat- ing the 17th century farmhouse, and a further £5.5m spent on creating a new spa to transform it from a four- to a fi ve-star hotel. The spa, which was the fi nal part of the redevelop- ment project, was unveiled in February.


Farncombe Estate is a 400 acre property, which is home to a family of businesses, all owned by the Philip-Sørensen family, and the Dormy House refurbishment is part of a wider pro- ject to reposition


Chief executive Andrew Grahame


Read Leisure Management online leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital


the estate as a luxury resort. It’s also home to the Farncombe Conference Centre – which was a residential train- ing school for security fi rm G4S until 2001, and which now offers a wide range of leisure courses – as well as Foxhill Manor, a private use country manor opening to the public in April after a major refurbishment. “When the estate was home to G4S, it was all behind barriers and was a place you stayed away from,” says Grahame. “Now we’ve got a great hotel and spa, an exclusive use venue, an amazing programme of courses at our conference cen- tre, and our guests have the use of the adjoining Broadway Golf Club. We’re speaking to music promoters about put- ting on music events here, we’re look- ing at bringing the Street Luge


Championships to Farncombe, and


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