Andrew Davis (born 12 February 1964) [1] is a British businessman who founded [2] the von Essen Group, which included Von Essen Hotels, PremiAir and the London Heliport.
Davis went to St Bede's Comprehensive School. Reigate Grammar School and Caterham College in Surrey, near where his father, Brendon, an executive at a subsidiary of Redland Tiles, and his mother still live. [3] During the early 1990s he was involved in small-scale property development, founding and operating a small helicopter charter business. It has been reported that Davis's first moneymaking business was selling jewellery and silver spoons door-to-door in the West Country. [4]
By 2000, Von Essen had three properties: Mount Somerset hotel in Taunton, Congham Hall hotel in Norfolk and New Park Manor in Hampshire. In 2000, it bought Ston Easton Park in Bath and Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire for around £5m each. Bishopstrow House hotel in Wiltshire was bought in 2001. In 2002 Davis leased Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, and the Royal Crescent hotel in Bath, for £50m. In 2003, Von Essen bought Lewtrenchard Manor in Devon, Dalhousie Castle near Edinburgh, and, for £16m, three Cotswolds properties (Buckland Manor, Lower Slaughter and Washbourne Court) and The Elms in the Teme Valley. The icing on the cake was the acquisition of the Sharrow Bay Country House hotel in Cumbria which was the UK's first country house hotel when it opened in the 1950s. According to the Good Food Guide's editor Desmond Balmer, Cliveden, the infamous backdrop to the 1960s Profumo Scandal, "has not shone as a hotel for the past five years." Of Sharrow Bay, Balmer said "We have dropped it." [5]
In 2007, after claims of Fawlty Towers-style bungling and poor service, seven of Davis's hotels were axed from The Good Hotel Guide, the leading arbiter of independent hotels in Britain and Ireland. [6]
The holding company, Von Essen Hotels, went into administration in April 2011 after defaulting on debt interest repayments. [7] The administrators, Ernst & Young, appointed a new chairman to replace Davis. [8] The portfolio was broken up, and most hotels had buyers by September 2011. [9] The 33 hotels, freehold unless stated otherwise, were:
In 2007, Davis bought London Heliport and PremiAir. In February 2012 the heliport site was acquired by Reuben Brothers. In 2011 PremiAir went into liquidation. Von Essen Aviation owned several helicopters and a private jet. In 2010, Davis was ranked on the Sunday Times Rich List at No. 244, with an estimated wealth of £292m. According to the Sunday Times of 26 April 2009, von Essen sponsored the Sunday Times Rich List. [12] Since then the veracity of these estimates, and of Davis's public persona, has been questioned. [13]
Davis's ex partner is Andrew Onraet, they lived together from 1998 until 2010. Prior to that, Davis appears to have married once. He is the father of one son. [5]
The Cotswolds is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale.
Cliveden is an English country house and estate in the care of the National Trust in Buckinghamshire, on the border with Berkshire. The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern Hills close to the South Bucks villages of Burnham and Taplow. The main house sits 40 metres (130 ft) above the banks of the River Thames, and its grounds slope down to the river. There have been three houses on this site: the first, built in 1666, burned down in 1795 and the second house (1824) was also destroyed by fire, in 1849. The present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland.
The Royal Crescent is a row of 30 terraced houses laid out in a sweeping crescent in the city of Bath, England. Designed by the architect John Wood, the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774, it is among the greatest examples of Georgian architecture to be found in the United Kingdom and is a Grade I listed building. Although some changes have been made to the various interiors over the years, the Georgian stone facade remains much as it was when first built.
Castle Combe is a village and civil parish within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Wiltshire, England. The village is around 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Chippenham. A castle once stood in the area, but was demolished centuries ago.
Dalhousie Castle is a castle in Cockpen, Midlothian, Scotland. Dalhousie Castle is situated near the town of Bonnyrigg, 8 miles (13 km) south of Edinburgh. The castle was the seat of the Earls of Dalhousie, the chieftains of Clan Ramsay.
Gatcombe Park is the country residence of Anne, Princess Royal, between the villages of Minchinhampton and Avening in Gloucestershire, England. Built in the late 18th century to the designs of George Basevi, it is a Grade II* listed building. It is a royal residence as it is home to the Princess Royal, and is privately owned. Parts of the grounds open for events, including horse trials and craft fairs.
Dyrham is a village and parish in South Gloucestershire, England.
Michael Andrew Caines is an English chef born in Exeter, Devon.
Andrew Douglas Brownsword CBE DL is an English entrepreneur who established the Forever Friends company. He has regularly featured on the Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated fortune of £190 million.
South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach Company Ltd was a bus and coach operator operating school bus services under contract to Bristol City Council and South Gloucestershire Council and coach services under contract to Megabus.
The Hotel Collection was a group of 4-star mid-market hotels operating in the United Kingdom. The group also included 18 health and leisure clubs. It ceased to exist as a separate entity, in 2015, when it was injected into the Amaris Hospitality portfolio who progressively sold off all the hotels
Forever Friends is a brand of Hallmark Cards, based on a Bear design. The Forever Friends bear can be found in 40 countries and in 15 languages.The bear was designed by artist Deborah Jones.
Gravetye Manor is a manor house located near East Grinstead, West Sussex, England. The former home of landscape gardener William Robinson, it is now a hotel and restaurant holding, in 2020, one star in the Michelin Guide, and is a Grade I listed building, with Grade 2* listed gardens.
Sharrow Bay Country House was a hotel and restaurant located on the eastern shore of Ullswater near Pooley Bridge, Cumbria, England. The hotel is associated with the creation of the sticky toffee pudding.
Kelston Park is an 18th-century country house in the village of Kelston, approximately 3 miles from Bath in North East Somerset, England. Altogether the house and gardens of Kelston Park cover an area of approximately 75 hectares. The house has been designated as a Grade II* listed building, and the garden is Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
The Roseate Reading Hotel is a boutique hotel in Reading, Berkshire, England. It is situated in the Forbury, formerly a part of Reading Abbey, and on the southern side of the modern Forbury Gardens. The building that forms the front section of the hotel was the Shire Hall for the County of Berkshire, built in 1911 and used as such until 1981, and is a grade II listed building.
London & Regional Properties (L&R) is a private real estate and leisure investment firm based in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest privately held principal investors in Europe, performing private equity style investments in direct property and asset-backed operating businesses.
Bishopstrow Hotel & Spa is a late-Georgian English country house standing near the B3414 in the parish of Bishopstrow, about a mile east of Warminster, in Wiltshire in southern England.
Francis Coulson was an influential British chef and co-owner of the Sharrow Bay Hotel. His obituary in The Independent described him as a deeply sensitive cook whose ‘airy, light sticky toffee pudding could stand as an epitaph to him in itself’. He likened pastry-making to piano- playing: "It is an art that comes as much from the heart as the hands," he said. As an accomplished hotelier, with his partner Brian Sack he set the bar for a new style of country house hotel.
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