LUTON HOO
THE HOUSE THAT HOSTED HISTORY
From Queen Elizabeth II to Winston Churchill, and from Hollywood movie stars to famous racehorses, Luton Hoo has hosted many glittering events and grand people. This year, the hotel celebrates its tenth anniversary, so we’re taking a look back at the history of this great estate…
There has actually has been a house on the Luton Hoo estate since at least 1601, and in 1611, King James I stayed there under a royal procession.
In 1767, a new mansion house was built by architect Robert Adam and it became the seat of the 3rd Earl of Bute, then Prime Minister to George III. The Earl commissioned landscape garden visionary, Capability Brown, to redesign the surrounding parkland, turning it into the glorious haven that we know today.
Tragically, this house was destroyed by a fire in 1843 and the current mansion house was built in its place. In 1903, Sir Julius Wernher bought Luton Hoo and hired London Ritz Hotel architects Charles Mewès and Arthur Davis to re-design the interior in a ‘Belle Epoque’ style.
The 1940s became an eventful time for Luton Hoo. During WWII, the house and its estate were commandeered by the military.
Once the war was over, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip spent part of their honeymoon in the room that is now the Queen Elizabeth Suite. In 1948, Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed a crowd of 100,000 people at Luton Hoo, thanking them for their support during the war.
In the 1950s, the then owners, Sir Harold Wernher and Lady Zia, bred several notable racehorses, including Brown Jack. However, over subsequent decades, Luton Hoo sadly fell into disrepair. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that Managing Director of Elite Hotels, Graeme Bateman, visited the tangled gardens and became determined to restore the house to its former glory.
The Elite Hotels Group bought the house in 1999 and more than £60 million was spent in a painstaking restoration project. When Luton Hoo finally re-opened its doors in 2007, it had become a grand hotel set in 1,065 acres of grounds, with 144 bedrooms and suites, a spa, swimming pool, tennis courts, 18-hole golf course, and a lake offering fishing and boating.
Over the years, Luton Hoo has also been a popular location for film and television.
It appeared in the two James Bond films
Never Say Never Again (1993) and The World Is Not Enough (1999),
plus Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994),
Eyes Wide Shut (1999),
Enigma (2001), Vanity Fair (2004) and War Horse (2011), among others…
Nowadays, Luton Hoo might be filled with modern comforts but you can still feel the past everywhere. Listen carefully and you might be able to hear the rustle of ball gowns sweeping down the spiral staircase, the applause of 100,000 people as Winston Churchill finished his speech, and the laughter of Queen Elizabeth as she arrived, a young and happy bride, to this house of glorious English history….
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From Queen Elizabeth second , to Winston Churchill.
Luton Hoo has hosted many grand people.
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