Parenting is many things but luxurious it is not. Even if you splurge on the pram, cot or organic baby food, the only day-to-day pampering attendant on the practice comes if you buy a particularly well-known brand of nappy. It is for this reason that parents in pursuit of indulgence and relaxation dump their progeny on any willing recipients they can find, typically grandparents, and get the hell out of dodge. This is a perfectly rational and understandable thing to do, but made somewhat trickier if said grandparents are the reason for the vacation in the first place. Under such circumstances, it would be a touch churlish to go on holiday without them.
This was the dilemma I faced a few weeks ago when looking to plan a celebratory and suitably prestigious getaway in honour of my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Can luxury and children mix? Happily, the hotel I alighted upon – Longueville Manor in Jersey’s capital, St Helier, run by the husband and wife team of Malcolm and Patricia Lewis – would prove they can…
A flight to fancy
Clearly, the length of time it takes you to travel to Jersey is contingent on where you live. But if that happens to be within striking distance of a London airport which flies to the Channel Islands (Gatwick or Luton), then you are in for an absolute treat. It had been several years since I had taken a domestic flight and, quite frankly, I had forgotten how speedy they were. Our flight from Gatwick was so rapid, it felt like everything was in double time – a boon given how restless children can be on planes.
With no requirement to go through passport control at Jersey Airport, the sense of speediness didn’t let up post-landing, and about 20 minutes after picking up our hire car, we were driving through Longueville Manor’s storied archway.
First impressions
One of Longueville's most remarkable aspects is how it hides quite how remarkable it is in plain sight. From the rather unprepossessing road at the front, the hotel is almost completely walled off from public view – and this is exactly how the team behind the hotel like it: they want guests to feel transported into another world. And there is certainly a Narnia quality to the premises, as while you have to drive your car with the precision of a brain surgeon through the somewhat tight archway (certainly if you have a hire car and are worried about the exorbitant excess), once inside, the vista opens up immediately. The hotel is fronted by a circular gravel drive with a water feature at its centre, and with staff awaiting your arrival, there is a Downton-esque frisson in the air from the start. Protruding from the building’s heart, a truly historical-looking tower is next to draw the eye. While I was unable to find details of exactly when it was erected, I was reliably informed that it is no folly and was built initially to keep a lookout for any hostile flotilla making a beeline to Jersey from the French coast.
Crossing the threshold, we were steered into the hotel’s recently refurbished bar where we were treated to complimentary refreshments and biscuits. With comfy sofas and oil paintings of the local area aplenty, it was a lovely way to ease into the holiday.
It was at this point that I was first struck by the hotel’s staff who, without exception, were attentive, helpful and friendly. Not that I have frequented many five-star establishments in my time, but on those rare occasions, I can feel slightly awkward if the staff are so eager to please that it feels disingenuous and obsequious. There is absolutely no danger of that at Longueville. The warmth of service is utterly genuine; from the start of your stay to the end, you become part of the hotel’s family. And a family it is. The head housekeeper, Tina, has been with the hotel for 40 years, an extraordinary stint given the customary transience of the hospitality sector. It is perhaps these many years of experience which make her the doyenne of stain removal, given the spotlessness of the hotel’s cream carpets. Whether mud, red wine or any other bodily substance you care to mention, no mark is indelible – quite reassuring when you turn up with a seven and two-year-old in tow.
These many years of service have also given Tina something else less easily defined: an extraordinary insight into what makes guests feel special. This ability was manifest when we checked into the rooms. Waiting for my red-headed daughter on her bed was a brand new copy of Anne of Green Gables. For those unfamiliar with the LM Montgomery classic, the eponymous Anne is a fiery redhead whom my daughter couldn’t resemble more – and we later discovered the choice of book was completely deliberate. Not to feel left out, a book for my son was also waiting for him in his cot. It was at this point that I first decided that young children and luxury weren’t unnatural bedfellows – luxury, after all, is as much attentiveness and personalisation as it is material.
Suite dreams
That being said, if it’s material pleasures you are after, Longueville provides them in abundance. I’ve already described my first impression, but my second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. were all equally delightful.
The best hotel room I have ever stayed in
First up, our suite was so vast and well-appointed it led to my daughter declaring it was the “best hotel room" she has ever stayed in. I don’t think I could disagree. It came with a cloakroom, two bedrooms, and a bathroom so large all four of us could simultaneously line up in front of the mirror and do our two teeth while still having room to swing at least one cat each. The only slight wrinkle was the water came out of the shower in the sort of weak stream that would typically indicate prostate issues – though when you have a bath so capacious and alluring, the need for a shower becomes less pressing.
Another really nice touch was the room’s complimentary iPad, on which my daughter was able to play puzzles, but being of a bibliophilic mindset, my personal highlights were the Scrabble set (of which there is one in every room), and the writing desk – the sort of desk that makes anyone who has ever had an itch to write a novel think all is possible.
Into the woods
While it would have been eminently feasible to spend our three-day sojourn holed up in our room, Longueville has so much to offer when you start to explore. I’ve already mentioned its Narnia qualities and these are even more apparent when you step out the back. Awaiting you are 16 acres of private grounds and woodland, an extraordinary feat given the manor’s suburban setting. Contained within the grounds are a trove of delights.
The outdoor swimming pool was shut given the season, but I couldn’t help but imagine how nice it must be on a summer’s day to lounge poolside with the manor's seemingly endless lawn and woods stretching into the distance before your eyes.
While a dip was precluded, the hotel offers plenty more means to work up a sweat in the autumnal months with both a little gym hidden away behind a painted wooden door, and a tennis court complete with its own dainty clubhouse and a tennis racket-shaped key to unlock it. My daughter and I spent an hour together on court, attempting to avoid my son, who was running around acting as a sort of ungovernable ball boy. Time spent with the family like this is luxurious indeed.
'Revelatory' spa
The apex of Longueville indulgence can be found just a shanked forehand away in the shape of The Cottage Garden, renowned as one of the leading boutique spas in Jersey. I can’t attest to the veracity of this claim, but my mum, sister and wife all had treatments and they certainly can…
“The massage was performed with meticulous care and precision, but also in a friendly manner and without a hint of deference, which proved to be the hallmark of service throughout the hotel,” said mum.
My wife was equally effusive: “The masseuse was highly knowledgeable, taking the time to discuss my areas of concern and to explain what to expect during the session. I felt completely relaxed and at ease throughout the full-body massage – and left the room feeling as though I was floating.”
As an elite marathon runner, my sister is more accustomed to being massaged than my wife and mum (to my knowledge), and so of the triumvirate was undoubtedly going to be the hardest to please. Happily, the Longueville masseuse rose to the occasion, leaving my sister describing her experience as a “revelation”.
“The massage bed was heated and covered with soft towels rather than scratchy kitchen roll, gentle music played in the background and the warmed oil was scented with locally grown roses," she said. "Rather than gritting my teeth, silencing yells of pain and counting down the minutes until the end of a treatment, I wanted to stay in the massage room for a good few hours longer than I had. In fact, the only downside of the massage was the fact that I knew, as soon as work began on my exceptionally tight calves, that it had to end.”
Food fit for a queen
While the hotel picks roses from the Longueville soil to delight the olfactory senses of those in its spa, it picks vegetables to delight the gustatory senses of those in its restaurant.
Overseeing which produce is plucked is the hotel’s executive chef, Andrew Baird. While not quite at Tina's 40 years of service, Andrew isn’t far behind having been in situ for 36 years. His cooking is renowned across the island and beyond, his repute even stretching to the corridors of Buckingham Palace. How, I hear you ask? Well, in 2001 he was in charge of a team which created a menu for Queen Elizabeth II when she came to the island in the year preceding her Golden Jubilee.
If Andrew’s cooking is good enough for royalty, then it was likely to be good enough for us. This thesis was proved correct and then some over the various courses of our dinner at the hotel on the Saturday night of our stay. Having had the heads up from yet another delightful staff member that Andrew was a nonpareil seafood exponent, for the starter I ordered the grilled hand-dived local scallops, autumn salad, crisp pancetta and smoked aioli. It’s always difficult to describe the quality of a meal without straying into clichés, but it was a plate of food that quite frankly demands their deployment: the combination of the succulent and fresh scallop with the salty hits of pancetta made every mouthful an individual event worth savouring.
The main was that evening’s special – roast Chateaubriand of Angus beef, local girolles, garden squash, broccoli shoots and Bearnaise sauce – and sadly it demands more culinary clichés as the meat was quite simply melt-in-the-mouth good. While the cows which kindly provided said meat aren’t found in a Longueville enclosure (though they are all meticulously sourced by Andrew from a farm in Scotland), the accompanying squash tasted all the more delectable knowing it was grown mere metres away from our table.
I can categorically state that never have we found a hotel (even the exclusively vegetarian ones) where there has been such a wide range of menu choice to suit our diet
Talking of vegetables, my mum, dad and sister are all decades-long vegetarians and so have been subjected to innumerable occasions where the restaurant or hotel’s version of vegetarian food is the ubiquitous risotto. Not so at Longueville, where Andrew gives meat shunners parity with us carnivores. “One of the things we know is there’s more demand for vegetarian and vegan offerings,” he writes in the hotel yearbook. “These dishes, to make them to our standard, can be quite tricky! There’s a lot of work needed to make sure that it can work, that the dish is elevated to the level of all our other dishes and can be produced seven days a week for lunch and dinner.”
This work was quite clearly manifested in the extensive menu on offer, and embodied by the star of Andrew’s vegetarian offering: his slow-cooked, puff pastry vegetable wellington, which even tempted an unabashed carnivore like me.
“I can categorically state that never have we found a hotel (even the exclusively vegetarian ones) where there has been such a wide range of menu choice to suit our diet," said mum. “Full vegetarian and vegan menus – enough to merit a five-star rating in itself.” High praise, indeed.
While evening menus tend to steal the show, it would be remiss of me not to mention the hotel's efforts when it comes to the meal of champions: breakfast.
Longueville eschews the buffet favoured by many establishments and goes all in on the a la carte. This undoubtedly adds a touch of luxury as there is simply nothing luxurious about scrambling for scrambled eggs, or battling another ravening diner for the plumpest-looking pork sausage.
The array of options available on the menu were extensive and refined. My children started each morning of the stay with a freshly made green juice, more evidence that children and luxury aren’t as incompatible as I once thought. Aware of the need to set myself up for the day, without fail I unashamedly went for the Longueville Full English, but perhaps most worthy of comment were the baskets of sweet treats and toast which were delivered to the table as a matter of course. Such was the profusion of pastries contained within, we always asked for a doggy bag to take away the leftovers, which came in very handy when out and about exploring Jersey.
Island life
As fans of Bergerac will know, there is much to explore in Jersey. While we were only on the Channel Island for two full days, we travelled back to the Stone Age at the La Hougue Bie where we entered one of the world's 10 oldest buildings (here the The History Guy gives a whistlestop tour of the ancient site), saw two of the most spectacular coastal vistas in the UK at Plemont Beach and Corbière Lighthouse respectively, and went to the picture postcard Gorey Harbour which is overshadowed by the imposing Mont Orgueil Castle. We climbed up to the castle, though sadly didn’t go inside due to the prohibitive cost. (A sidenote to Jersey Heritage: don’t make visiting such a treasure the preserve of those with money to burn.)
This minor quibble aside, we came away from Jersey with the sure sense we would return, perhaps this time in the summer months as the island truly does boast some magnificent sandy beaches, with the stretch at St Aubin as good as anything you will see on the continent.
At the outset I asked if luxury and family can truly mix? Well, I discovered they can if the establishment in which you are staying purposely infuses its luxurious offering with a family ethos. Longueville Manor is one such hotel.
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