“This Christmas will be different, but we want to maintain as many traditions as possible. Usually we would have more Americans staying but our guests this year do include two families from the USA who come over every year,” says Francisco Macedo, general manager of the 48-room Cliveden House Hotel, near Taplow, England.
Year-round, hotel guests typically include about 15% Americans, with average stay of three nights. Some are initially attracted by the links with Stanford University, which leased Cliveden from the palatial 1850 building’s owners, the National Trust, from 1969 to 1985. Others come because of the location, a mere 20 minutes’ drive west of Heathrow, or its setting, with 376 acres of meticulously kept woods and open landscape rolling down to the River Thames.
There have also been frequent royal associations. A three-bedroom cottage, available for overnight stays, often hosted Queen Victoria for afternoon tea.
“Even today, our afternoon tea is so popular we start from 12 noon, with two-hour time slots. It is served in the hotel’s main restaurant, with stunning views down to the river, and in the spirit of Christmas the usual finger sandwiches and scones with clotted cream and preserves are complemented by turkey rolls, with stuffing and cranberry sausage. The range of 13 loose-leaf teas includes an all-English Cliveden Blend, with leaves from Tregothnan Estate in Cornwall (this tea, connoisseurs say, is bold, malty and rich). About 90% of guests also add a flute of Veuve Clicquot,” Macedo revealed.
Afternoon tea was previously served in the hotel’s lobby, a paneled two-floor 19th-century theater with working log fireplace (“the hubbub reminded me of an airport lounge at peak times,” Macedo recalled).
Now, with tea-takers diverted, those using the lobby can admire its imposing portraits. A life-sized John Singer Sargent to the left of the fireplace shows an American, the celebrated Nancy Langhorne Astor, shortly after her 1905 marriage, her second, to Waldorf Astor, whom she was later to replace as MP, the first female member to sit in the British parliament: She is said to have had this portrait altered to remove her small son Bobby, who was originally shown on her back.
This tea diversion was one of the first improvements Macedo, who had been dabbling in consultancy, effected after arriving at Cliveden in September 2018 – he needed, he felt, to be back in a hotel, to see what is going on, and talk to guests, club members and a team. From the Portuguese island of Madeira, he wanted to be a surgeon but while starting medicine he diverted to hospitality, which he says has many similarities, including a necessary love of people and finding a way to overcome unforeseen challenges.
“At another hotel I was tasked with taking it up the luxury scale. Staff had 24-hour stays, all expenses paid, and they had to assess whether, if they were spending their own money, they would consider the whole experience worth it or, if not, why not,” he recalled. Current challenges include Cliveden’s growing club membership, who, as a result of working from home, come from an ever-widening catchment area. And now, he explained, the hotel and its 153-strong team is gearing up for Christmas.
“Three nights, all-inclusive, all ages, with some participants wanting maximum time for tennis, socially distanced swimming and yet another spa treatment, and others waiting for that Christmas meal, culminating in brandy pudding – and perhaps, later, a festive afternoon tea.”