LUTON HOO

The refurbishment of Luton Hoo has provided a once in a lifetime opportunity to breathe new life into one of Britain’s most outstanding Grade 1 listed architectural masterpieces by Robert Adam. Architectural practice, Clague, working with contractors, Cardy Construction and the owners, Elite Hotels has developed designs that respect the quality of the original architecture while providing everything needed to create a five star hotel with 147 guest bedrooms. The final result is testament to the building team’s close working relationship, as well as their relationship with English Heritage and South Bedfordshire planning and building control departments, building on the eight years taken to achieve planning consent. The extensive refurbishment at Luton Hoo, completed in the autumn of 2007, included external work and complete interior fit-out. The accommodation is divided among the newly built and refurbished buildings. In addition to the mansion itself, four new buildings, including the newly built ‘Parkland’ and ‘Flower Garden’ wings, were designed in settings carefully chosen to respect the historic estate, providing bedroom and conference facilities together with staff and estate management operation areas. These buildings were designed to be subservient to the mansion house and respond to an historic estate building hierarchy. The conversion of the Adam mansion involved the retention of all the key public rooms with the ground floor retaining all the original room layouts, which proved eminently suited to the commercial space requirements of a hotel. The first floor had minimal intervention with the retention of the historic first floor suites, including the Queen’s bedroom. The designs for the upper floors saw the most change with an imaginative approach to the former servants’ quarters resulting in 250 tons of masonry from the top floor of the mansion house being removed allowing the floor to be raised in order to create 10 new rooms. In this way the roof profile has in fact been returned to that originally envisaged for the house.