Corbin & King and Grosvenor reach new agreement over ownership of the Beaumont
Corbin & King has relinquished the leasehold on the Beaumont, the renowned restaurant owner and operator’s first hotel, after the property’s freeholder, Grosvenor, applied to appoint administrators.
The company confirmed that a new agreement had been reached regarding the 73-bedroom property in Mayfair, London, which will see Corbin & King continuing “to manage and operate the Beaumont and Colony Grill on a management contract for Grosvenor, replacing the previous landlord and tenant arrangement”.
In a recent interview, Jeremy King, who with Chris Corbin heads the Corbin & King empire, said: “We put together finance [from Grosvenor when the hotel was built] and it just didn’t work out for us.”
The new financial arrangement was agreed after Grosvenor, headed by the Duke of Westminster, was reported to have filed a court application to appoint administrators, which it later dropped.
Since opening in 2014, the Beaumont has been a hit with guests and critics alike. The AA recently named it as its Hotel of the Year – London for 2016/17.
The hotel was redeveloped from what was originally built as a town garage in 1926 and later occupied by the Avis car rental company. While the distinctive art deco façade was retained, the rest of the property is essentially a new build, having had two storeys added on top and another two levels dug out below to create a basement.
King devised a fictional back story to inform the ethos, interior design and style of the hotel. Using the narrative of a fictional American hotelier called Jimmy Beaumont, who left New York during the 1920s, he drew on influences from both sides of the Atlantic to create a modern-day grand hotel.
From the outset, the Beaumont said that it intended to stick to a rack rate, starting at £395, rather than adjusting the rate according to demand. Occupancy has risen from 65% in the first year of operation to 85% over the past three months.
The opening general manager Paul Brackley left the hotel in October 2015 and is now at the Shangri-La Hotel at The Shard, London. He was replaced by Jannes Soerensen from Le Bristol in Paris.
At the time of the opening, Corbin & King said it was already looking for a second hotel site. The company is best known for its collection of perennially busy London restaurants which include the Wolseley, the Delaunay, Brasserie Zedel, Colbert, Fischer’s and Bellanger.