6 | Hospitality
| Winter
HOTEL
OPENING Today
OF THE
YEAR 2020
The Newt
in Somerset
This year’s most talked-about hotel
opening happens to be a near neighbour
of HT’s Bruton HQ, so we have watched
The Newt In Somerset with more than
usual interest – and were lucky enough
to have visited both gardens and hotel
in the pre-opening phase and since.
Hadspen House, the historic country
house which had been the family
home of the Hobhouse family, has been
famous in a previous era for its gardens,
some created by Penelope Hobhouse
(author of The Country Gardener) in the
1960s.
This area has in recent years become
fashionable – a trend started by
Catherine Butler’s ‘At The Chapel in
Bruton and the opening of nearby
Babington House by the Soho House
group, and accelerated in the last five
years or so by the opening of Hauser
& Wirth Somerset, the contemporary
international art gallery, in Bruton. The
latter’s Roth Bar & Grill restaurant has
been feted by critics including Giles
Coren (“I love, love, love this place”).
In 2013 after local rumours about
purchases by Johnny Depp (amongst
others), Hadspen House was bought
by South African tech billionaire Koos
Bekker and his wife Karen Roos (a
designer who has overseen much of
the look and style of the hotel). The
Bekkers recruited a head of horticulture
from the Eden Project and the Lost
Gardens of Helligan to create lavish new