No place like a hotel
Alice Whaley grew up in her family’s Spanish hotel. Bottle-fed by waiters, pampered by guests, she adores Fawlty Towers on the Med
The Hurricane Hotel in Tarifa, Spain, should be renamed Fawlty Towers on the Med. The three Whaley brothers – my father and his two brothers – are three Basil Fawltys and there are lots of guests and staff called Manuel.
At 21, I’m the youngest of four siblings and eight cousins, all of whom have grown up in and around the Hurricane Hotel. Our house was ten minutes down the road but, with both my parents deeply involved in the hotel all day, the Hurricane was ‘home’. It’s a beautiful, Moroccan-style building on the southernmost tip of Spain, with two stars and 36 rooms. Free spirits, the brothers refused the offer of four stars, so that they wouldn’t be tied down by the arduous requirements of maintaining them.
It’s on the beach, palm trees surround the two swimming pools, and the view across the Gibraltar Straits to Morocco is magnificent. It’s paradise – unless you run the business. The problems are Hydra-like: one gets solved, only for two more to appear in its place.
My father and his brothers built the hotel in 1985, and most of the staff and guests haven’t changed since then. The waiters know the returning guests by name, and the guests know all the quirks and whims of the staff. The maître d’ was once thrilled by the gift of a pair of red high heels from some Germans; nowhere in Spain sold them in his size.
Eccentrics from all over the world congregate in the Hurricane, often attracted by my mad uncle James, who wrote the punk film Jubilee (1978) with Derek Jarman. In among ordinary holidaymakers and happy families, there’s a ménage à trois who return every year, and a man who has ordered the same dinner for the past 25 years.
Of course, some people are nightmares, but those are few and far between. We’ve had ludicrous complaints: one person was annoyed that
he hadn’t noticed the air-conditioning unit in his room, and so hadn’t turned it on. For the most part, the guests become old friends. When Uncle James died in May, lots of them flew in for the funeral.
People’s loyalty to the Hurricane makes for an even closer-knit feel than in most family-run hotels. For me, it has meant a curious relationship with the staff and guests. Even as I take on more responsibility, I’m still the baby whom they bottle-fed. Ladies on holiday always loved looking after me. I was a sweet little thing with blonde hair and blue eyes; by the age of four, I had learnt how to charm retirees. A week’s holiday would be just short enough to end before one group of cooing ladies grew bored with me, and another batch would fly in.
I enjoyed the attention from grownups though I had no time for the children who were also guests in the hotel. Surrounded by adults, I made every effort to keep up with discussions ranging from George W Bush to the Berlin Wall. I would happily pipe up with some opinion I had borrowed from the previous guests, being sure to quote the longest words, whether or not I was asked.
Within the family, dinner conversation always revolved round the hotel. To this day, it’s hard to catch up with my siblings without turning to an update on the Hurricane. It’s never about numbers of guests. Instead, there’s always a drama to laugh about: the bald chef is claiming ‘health and safety gone mad’ at the imposition of a hairnet; the parrots have done their business on an expensive car.
The petty squabbles of family and business regularly run into one another. After a particularly divisive disagreement, my uncle got his revenge by having my father’s house painted lilac.
We almost always ate in the restaurant when I was growing up. Before we had a single bite of food, we were discussing how long it took the paella to arrive and evaluating the plate it came on. It wouldn’t be long before my mum disappeared into the kitchen to congratulate a waiter on the arrival of a new baby, or one of my uncles appeared at the table without anybody’s noticing. All the family jump in to help serving on a busy night, and our own food’s long gone cold before we get a chance to sit back down.
I’ve been lucky to grow up so absurdly well fed. What eight-year-old’s favourite food is swordfish? Still, my hotel upbringing has been not only a blessing but also sometimes a curse. I can’t help noticing how other restaurants work, and comparing notes. If there’s nothing to be fixed in another restaurant, then there’s something to be learnt – and promptly pitched to the family. We’re constantly exchanging photos of trendy bar designs and well-presented food.
For all its oddities, this life – this hotel – is my ‘normal’. I have little experience of other hotels. We never went on holiday because, as my dad always said, why would you? There’s sun, sand and sea in Tarifa. If you’re lucky enough to call the hotel home, that’s just a bonus.
The Hurricane Hotel, Tarifa, has rooms from 87 euros per night. Easyjet flies to Gibraltar from Luton and Gatwick, from £56 return