The hotel: you may remember the maxim from the Kevin Costner
movie Field of Dreams — if you build it, they will come. Well, Hustyns is
here to tell you that ain’t necessarily so. This complex of hotel and
“garden lodges” near Wadebridge, Cornwall, opened 18 months ago with minimum
fanfare and, therefore, minimum occupation levels. Which is remarkable,
because Cornwall, as you no doubt know, is in the grip of a feverish tourist
boom, the narrow lanes full of twig-lashed BMW X5s, the B&Bs bristling
with No Vacancies boards and Newquay beach as crowded as those old pictures
of Coney Island. Yet on our visit in August, Hustyns, which sits in 187
acres, was blissfully, almost spookily empty. Lovely.
The hotel is divided into a modern, 37-room main building, which looks a
little like an upmarket (but well- constructed) golf club, and a series of
lodges, some of which are very grand self-contained houses. The gardens
surrounding all this are immaculately kept; and because, unusually, all the
main planting was done before the building was erected, there is none of
that “It’ll be nice when it grows” feeling so common with newly opened
hotels. It was a battle to stop my wife leaving with a boot full of
cuttings.
It is clear from the quality of the horticulture and the general fixtures and
fittings that considerable money has been lavished on the project. The owner
is a man who made his fortune in the meat-supply business, has an interest
in boxing (there is a ring on site, and Audley Harrison has used it as a
training camp) and likes to keep fit — hence the fantastic gym, the new spa
and the Alliss Golf Academy. In fact, the facilities are hard to fault.
So what are the rooms like? Bright and modern, with big,
comfortable beds. But if you have children or friends, opt for the lodges,
with their whirlpool baths, satellite televisions, DVD players,
well-equipped kitchens and terraces. There are 16 lodges up and running now,
with another 12 coming on line by next year, but there is no feeling of
crowding.
And the food? Two options — a brasserie for
breakfast/lunch/dinner (where kids are welcome and well catered for), and a
fine-dining evening restaurant, the latter attached to a jazz/champagne bar
that a friend reckons reminded him of the nightclub in Goodfellas.
The operation hasn’t quite bedded in — while we were there, they suddenly
decided the brasserie would no longer open in the evening, a decision
swiftly reversed when the other restaurant was swamped. I guess that until
the hotel starts running at full capacity, there will still be service
issues here and there.
The food, however, is very good indeed, with vegetables from the kitchen
garden and much locally sourced produce. As you might expect, given the
hotel’s provenance, the steak was excellent, but so were the scallops I had:
plump and juicy, with a consistency that suggested they had just popped out
of the shell.
Let’s suppose we want to leave the hotel: Wadebridge is
just three miles away, but, even better, you can hire a bike, cycle through
the pine forests and pick up the Camel Trail along the estuary into
Pad-stow. No shortage of shops or restaurants there, although we spent our
afternoon crabbing from the quayside. We caught just one, but it was a
whopper.
What about the kids? There are plans for a crèche/playroom,
but for the moment Hustyns has an outdoor playground and a tennis court, as
well as in-room games and DVDs. The staff will also organise excursions for
children in the school holidays, to surfing school or the adventure courses
held at Lusty Glaze beach, near Newquay. Our kids were happy with the vast,
intricate grounds they could wander through (and the football pitch they
stumbled across).
Good for: Cornwall without the crowds. For now, at least.
Bad for: in-house history — this is a new-build, so it is low
on cultural/historical/ atmospheric resonance.
Hustyns (01208 893700, www.hustyns.com ).
Doubles start at £240, B&B, but check the website for the
three-nights-for-two offers that have been running this year. Garden lodges
(three bedrooms, sleeping six) start at £250, room-only
