Forget the Keeler scandal – Cliveden’s the new Downton
Britain’s most notorious grand house is cashing in on the tourist boom
THE billionaire owners of Cliveden, one of Britain’s best-known country houses, are hoping to cash in on a surge in foreign tourists keen for a slice of Downton Abbey-style class.
Booking at period homes rose by 18 per cent last year according to Visit Britain with the TV drama, popular worldwide, widely credited with attracting tourist pounds.
Cliveden, the former home of the Astors and the scene of key events in the notorious Profumo scandal, is now a top-class hotel owned by the secretive brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone, who made their fortune in London property.
They bought the lease on the site by the Thames in Buckinghamshire – the freehold is owned by the National Trust – two years ago, rescuing it from the ashes of the Swedish Von Essen hotel business, which collapsed with debts of £300million.
The hotel is about to start the second phase of a £20million redevelopment. The next steps include a renovation of Lady Astor’s boudoir and the library, and plans to develop a spa around the swimming pool where Christine Keeler swam naked and first caught the eye of ill-fated Minister of War John Profumo.
More recent guests at the hotel, where rooms cost between £250 and £1,500 a night, include actor Hugh Jackman, who spent six months at Cliveden last year while filming at nearby Pinewood studios.
Tourism income is a crucial part of
the UK’s recovery, accounting for a fifth of Britain’s exports. Inbound tourism is regarded as an export because it results in overseas money being spent on British goods and services.
The recent gains in the value of sterling, which is now worth $1.69 – close to a five-year peak – may pose a risk to some exporters. But the wealthiest visitors looking for a slice of aristocratic life are unlikely to be put off.
Cliveden managing director Andrew Stembridge said that before the purchase the hotel had ‘completely disappeared off the map, both in the UK and overseas in key markets such as America’. But with the Livingstones willing to spend millions on the stately home, the hotel is now back on track to be one of Britain’s grandest country homes. The brothers already own luxury spa hotel Chewton Glen, on the edge of the New Forest, and commercial property from Mexico to Sweden.
As well as the £20million, threeyear restoration project there is a new marketing push in America to help 39-room Cliveden capitalise on the ‘Downton effect’. In fact, says Stembridge grandly: ‘We’re more Downton than Downton Abbey. You can actually stay in us for a start.’
Fighting talk indeed, not least because Lady Carnarvon, the owner of Highclere Castle, which is used as the set for Downton Abbey, has said that Cliveden and other stately homes-turned-hotels are ‘no longer living, breathing places’.
‘Instead, they are turned into bland buildings, without a soul, devoted only to the goal of profit-making,’ she declared.
Stembridge would disagree. He said: ‘Here we have kept the look and feel of an English country home with its incredible history.’
Although Stembridge has one key qualification – the stuffiness of the past has been ditched. ‘The service at Cliveden used to be very Downton Abbey – snooty with white gloves – but we wanted people to feel welcome here instead,’ he said.
Interest in anything linked to Profumo reignited last year with the 50th anniversary of the scandal and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s latest, but short-lived, musical Stephen Ward.
Now Stembridge’s task is to ‘get the Cliveden name out there’, he said. ‘Americans are obsessed with Downton Abbey and if you want to get a slice of old England this is where you come.’
Charles Millward, chief executive of property rental company Rural Retreats, said: ‘The success of the show has revived some great interest in British period history. People from the UK and internationally, in particular the US and expats in Australia, are keen to live out their own Downton Abbey dream in the nation’s grand houses.’
Cliveden already has a strong American connection. The estate, which dates back to 1666 when the second Duke of Buckingham built the house, passed down the generations until it was sold in 1893 to wealthy American William Waldorf Astor, who later gave Cliveden to his son on his marriage to Lady Astor.
After the Profumo scandal, the Astors left Cliveden and returned to America. After 20 years as part of Stanford University in California, Cliveden was converted into a hotel in 1985, but during the Von Essen years received poor reviews and was dropped by top guide books.
Now it is back on track to become one of Britain’s top historical attractions. However, it could have a fight on its hands. The rest of Britain’s stately homes are also gearing up for those crucial Downton dollars.