Back in business: the Selsdon Park Hotel has its third owners in four years, after it was sold to a subsidiary of the BH Group by administrators
EXCLUSIVE By STEVEN DOWNES
A £1billion property business has bought what was once known as the Selsdon Park Hotel, and is looking to re-open in 12- to 14-months’ time after a multi-million-pound refurb (yes, another one).
The £200 per night Birch Selsdon, with its two bars, three restaurants and 200 acres of North Downs parkland, was forced into administration in November 2023. It had only opened for business less than six months earlier.
In 2022, what had been a somewhat tired and run-down hotel, sports centre and golf club changed hands to be given a £15million makeover and re-styled as a modern, up-market country club charging members £150 per month.
According to the official administrators, the Birch hotel in Selsdon was “subject to approximately £29million of bank debt”.
Now, a recently registered “boutique hotels” company, part of the Leeds-based BH Group which has an estimated £975million of developments and properties in its portfolio, has stepped in with plans to revive the 19th-Century heritage building – but it will open only after investing millions in a new heating system and double glazing in what were often draughty bedrooms.
The purchase paperwork is expected to be completed in the next four weeks.
Pumping iron: members paid £150 per month, plus a £300 joining fee, to use the Birch facilities, such as the weight machines and gym
A nod to the styling of the revamped hotel can be found on the pages of online auction site The Saleroom, where many of the “new-age” fixtures and fittings which delighted the hipster members of Birch Selsdon are now to be flogged off next month.
“Barely used” and “bespoke” items are up for sale from a mere £5 a pop, as the auctioneers offer tables, sofas and table lamps described as “a sophisticated marriage of durable industrial design and mid-century textures”.
Basically, the hotel bedrooms, bars and restaurants are being stripped out to make way for what the new owners deem to be more in keeping for the building and location.
Auction house: prices start from a fiver, and it looks like everything must go
AB Boutique Hotels Operations Selsdon Ltd was registered with Companies House in January this year. It has four directors, two of them based in Saudi Arabia.
Another clue to how the new owners might proceed in Selsdon could lie with the Windermere Hotel, the Burlington Hotel in Eastbourne, the Imperial in Exmouth, and the St Ives Bay Hotel and the Ship and Castle Hotel in Cornwall – all of them bought up by subsidiaries of the BH Group last year.
Those hotels were bought from Coast and Country Hotel Collection, formerly part of Shearings Hotels, one of the many hospitality businesses which cracked under the stresses and financial strains of covid in 2020 and 2021 – just as De Vere opted to dispose of its Selsdon Park Hotel in February 2022.
“These hotels form the basis of our drive into the growing ‘staycation’ market,” James Routledge, BH Group’s chief operating officer, told Boutique Hotelier magazine last year.
“We are excited by these opportunities and others we are currently seeing in the market.”
Routledge was carrying out his PR duties last night, at the annual meeting of the Selsdon Residents’ Association, where locals were eager to hear of his company’s plans for what was, in its pomp, a significant employer in Croydon. There were between 80 and 100 full- and part-time staff working at Birch Croydon when it closed.
Staycation chic: the BH Group was behind the purchase of five English country hotels last year
Routledge told his audience that his company wants Selsdon to be an “affordable” four-star hotel with 176 rooms (a handful fewer than when it operated under the previous owners).
Unlike under Birch, when the facilities were for members only, in future they will welcome locals as customers to their bars and restaurants.
The refurbishment will take up to 14 months, due to start as soon as contracts are signed off, with £6.5million budgeted for new heating works alone.
Other plans, such as perhaps having a spa, an enlarged lido and other facilities, will only be activated once they have the venue open for business again, and generating revenue.
The building had been subject to discredited rumours that the Home Office was somehow preparing to turn the place into a refugee hotel. Routledge told residents that the visible presence on site of security guards was to deter break-ins and vandalism in the otherwise vacant building.
Routledge also offered an assurance to residents, after two years of gossip and speculation, that his company has no intentions to sell off their Green Belt land for housing development.
Stunning views: there was well-placed anxiety about what was to become of the hotel and grounds. Now, the hand-crafted ‘mushroom’ lamps are all up for auction
Routledge’s presentation to Selsdon RA suggested that there are also no plans to rebuild the former golf course.
Use of the extensive grounds could in future include such things as cycle tracks, padel courts, quad bike hire or even clay pigeon shooting.
Re-establishing Selsdon Park’s stables was also mentioned.
Most Selsdon RA members seemed assured and pleased by this latest move for the previously prestigious venue, which until three years ago had a century-long history of hosting wedding receptions, birthday dinners, Conservative Party away days, FA Cup final teams and even Britain’s Got Talent auditions.
Read more: Administrators move in to run Selsdon’s ‘shabby chic’ hotel
Read more: Lots of reservations after Selsdon hotel and golf course close
Read more: Get orf moy laaand! Posh hotel declares parkland a no-go zone
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