Red Carnation Hotels

PRESS ROOM

A Culture of Hospitality

01/10/2007

The turning point was the moment when I practically stumbled -- harassed and hurried -- across the threshold of the Chesterfield Mayfair hotel in London and suddenly found myself inside a cozy lobby, feeling as comfortable as if I had slipped into a snug, furry glove.

It wasn't large, grand or flashy. On the contrary, it was furnished with soft tapestries and draperies, warm woods, traditional design elements. It was elegant, not ostentatious, with a shiny marble tile floor, square Corinthian columns, and a crystal chandelier. The design favored soft organic materials over hard-edged plastics and metals. The word "homey" comes to mind, and that feeling may well have been imbedded deeply under the surface of the hotel environment because that lobby had once been someone's home. If those walls could speak!

The Chesterfield Mayfair made its debut in the early 1970s when its founders turned three private homes into a single hotel. At the time, the city of London was trying to boost hotel inventory by offering subsidies to anyone who added rooms to the market. It was one of many hotels created at that time from pre-existing buildings. When I took my first tour of the hotel with Alex Bray, the Chesterfield's general manager, I quickly came face to face with the elements that drive the business, including what creates the personality of the company and the ambience that enveloped me when I walked in the door.

My own room, Stanhope Suite 101, was amazing. It had a soft, comfortable couch and easy chair, a coffee table, a dining table and a desk with a painting of Winston Churchill above it; in the next room, a sunken bedroom area featured an inviting bed with an upholstered headboard and a velvety vermillion bedspread with gold braids. The room had the standard kinds of high-end amenities advertised in hotel brochures, like cable TV, Internet access, and a CD player with a selection of CDs. But what was most striking were the paintings, the statuettes and vases, the collector's pieces around the room -- personal things you don't typically see in hotel rooms. They gave the room a personal touch, the distinct feeling of being in someone's home. And I soon discovered that my first impression was not accidental.

"Beatrice Tollman, our president and founder, treats the business as if it were a private home," says Bray. The room was specifically furnished with individually selected collectibles, creating a feeling of intimacy that is the opposite pole to the standardized hotel experience. As I continued to explore the rooms of the Chesterfield and the other Red Carnation properties, I saw that the whole business is operated as if it were an extension of someone's home -- at least someone who loves to entertain and dazzle guests.

The same innate feeling of honor and hospitality that pervades the atmosphere of Red Carnation's hotels extends to the company's employees and management. "Mrs. Tollman treats the staff members who take care of the hotel as very important people," says Bray. "She has a sensitive way with them. She has time to engage the whole staff. She remembers names, birthdays, Christmas gifts with an encyclopedic mentality. It's a level of engagement and involvement that is very rare. It spurs motivation. It's a culture that has been created over the years."

The decor of each Red Carnation property is the special project of Beatrice Tollman. Though each hotel is distinct, each has the individual stamp of someone's loving attention. I toured several of hotels with Terry Holmes, Red Carnation's managing director and practically a legend in the London hotel business. Holmes followed his father into the business at the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane at age 15, and has run prestigious London hotels such as the Stafford and the Ritz during his career. Holmes further reinforced for me the sense of personal involvement by Red Carnation's ownership.

"Red Carnation puts a lot of money into their hotels," says Holmes. "I always tell people if you haven't seen a Red Carnation hotel in the last year, you haven't really seen it. I've always had high standards, but these people have incredibly high standards. It is a profitable company, but they put a lot of money back into the business. A lot of companies don't. I ran the Ritz for 12 years. In that time I got the fountain working in the Palm Court and I got the staff to smile. I haven't had to do that with this staff. The staff loves the owners and the owners love the staff."

Holmes is like the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary of hotel lore and culture, but he has the ability to break the business down to its simplest terms. The central tenet of the business, he says, is that the client is king. "The best hotel is where you're best known," he says. "Everyone wants to be known. One of the biggest things is to be recognized. At the end of the day we're innkeepers. We sell rooms and we take care of people for the night. The hospitality part of it hasn't changed, but the way you do it has."

We visited all of the London properties: the Milestone, the Edgerton House, the Rubens, The Montague and "41." The style I had first seen at the Chesterfield was not carried throughout the group. Instead, there was a wide variety of décor in every property, but the personal touch, attention to detail and the design integrity built around discernible themes remained constant. "We market ourselves as individual hotels, not as a chain," says Jonathan Ragget, managing director of Red Carnation Hotels. "We're not like Four Seasons where every one is the same. The individual hotels are known. That is more important to us."

According to Holmes, all of Red Carnation's hotels, whether they are four or five stars, use high-end products, from pillows to wine to soaps. "The artwork at all the hotels is at the highest levels," he says. "It doesn't just happen. It happens because someone has taste and style. The people who benefit are the clients. It's what they get. It's like staying with people who love their homes."

The hotels' design themes also have an element of playfulness. The Rubens has a series of rooms designed in honor of various royals. There's a Henry VIII room, and one each for Ann Boleyn, Elizabeth I and Victoria. Each had expertly painted copies of historic portraits of the respective namesakes. A music-themed room had sheet music wallpaper; a diorama containing a violin and various musical paraphernalia and even F-holes painted onto a natural wood toilet seat.

Red Carnation dates back to 1985, when the company purchased the Chesterfield Palm Beach in Palm Beach, Fla., and the Chesterfield Mayfair in London, though at the time the Red Carnation brand had not officially emerged. "In 1994 we formed Red Carnation with those two," he says, "and we've bought one every year since," Raggett says. "We look for hotels that are under-priced in the market, that need investment and have a very special location. We then put them through a massive refurbishment, increase the staffing 30 to 40 percent and increase the star rating."

Raggett trains staff to follow a 12-point code of service standards with such principles as: "Smile and use positive eye contact in every guest encounter. Anticipate guests' needs. Through pride and professionalism, act as a RCH ambassador."

"We're big on training," Raggett says. "This business is very much a people business. I tell my team that it is show business -- it is theater. The mood and lighting should be right. This business is not rocket science, but it is hard work and craft. You can't teach that. But if someone's got it, you can direct it."

All of Red Carnation's top management have put in their time learning every corner of the business,. "Mrs. Tollman grew up in the business," says Raggett. "She was a fantastic chef for many years. I've done dishes and cleaned bedrooms. I've done it all and I can do it all. And I respect the staff members who clean the rooms."

For more information, visit www.redcarnationhotels.com.

David Cogswell
Executive Editor-Tours & Packages

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