Hospitality and workplace designers SpaceInvader have created a rich, layered and luxurious interiors concept for new boutique hotel WILDES Chester in a Grade-II listed building in The Rows, the city’s famous historical centre. The Rows, continuous half-timbered galleries accessed by stairs, form a gallery above street level along Chester’s Watergate, Northgate, Eastgate and Bridge Streets. The hotel property, on the corner of Bridge and Watergate Streets, was originally developed in 1892 by architect Thomas M Lockwood and is made up of three townhouses. Most recently it had been used as office space when The WILDES Hotel Group took over the lease, seeing the building’s great potential and delighting in its key location on The Rows, popular with visitors to the city from medieval times to the present day.
‘We believe there’s an opportunity in the city to create a go-to destination that offers exceptional accommodation for business and leisure travellers, the ultimate dining spot or somewhere to enjoy evening cocktails whatever the occasion. Our focus is to delight our guests’ senses through innovative food and service with a real aim to redefine hospitality within the city’, Paul Wildes, CEO of The WILDES Hotel Group commented. ‘Original features include huge fireplaces, stone windows and original beams and the hotel will be sensitively refurbished to retain these period features while introducing an interior design that takes influence from key venues in London and around the world’.
Liverpool-based Edge Architects have been commissioned to extend the building to the rear, as well as creating a new roof terrace with plunge pool, with the proposals currently awaiting planning permission. The new layout of the black-and-white-fronted building, where the existing fabric is partly redbrick Victorian and partly Jacobean, will encompass 16 en suite bedrooms, each featuring a unique design. Free-standing furnishings in the bedrooms allow the original building to breathe, whilst quirky elements, from free-standing bathtubs and skylights for guests to enjoy the night sky to the four-seater cinema in one of the rooms, add character.
Benedict’s, a new day-to-night destination bar and restaurant for both residents and non-residents, is located on the hotel’s ground floor. The hospitality offer also includes an external terraced area, where non-residents can have a drink or bar snack, with the external banquettes heated in winter to ensure year-round appeal. A private dining room, leading up from the restaurant, will also be situated on the first floor and can be hired for special events. A state-of-the-art spa on the first floor features a relaxation area, nail bar and multiple treatment rooms and is also open to non-residents, with easy access via the hotel’s central circulation core.
The interiors concept takes its initial influence from the site’s history, having originally been built for the Duke of Westminster as a base for his country pursuits, including horse racing and deerstalking. References to horse racing saddlery, from leather straps to diamond stitching details, are incorporated throughout, whilst the logo for Benedict’s and the feature layered bulkhead over the bar are inspired by the racecourse tracks, making it the perfect place to visit before or after a trip to Chester races. The new identity work on the scheme is by Natural Selection Creative Studio.
A second inspirational source was Chester’s medieval market heritage, with Bridge Street having played host to a market trading in leather, cotton and wine and the site itself said to have been used as a corvisor (leather works), producing leather harnesses, gloves and riding boots.
The third thread of the concept is the architecture’s mostly Victorian origins, which finds form in opulent styling in the interiors scheme, from the use of decorative tiling and floral patterns to deep rich jewel tones and exaggerated details. The Victorian era also saw a rise in trade with the East and the importation of new exotic materials from India and China, including luxurious, hand-painted silk wallpapers, woven rattan furniture and highly-decorated porcelain. This aspect of the era’s eclectic tastes forms the final styling inspiration, in the form of large, patterned rugs and the jewel tones used for the bedroom design palette, whilst silk wallpapers and patterns influenced by India and China line the corridors.
