Julian Troup

The Lakes are always attractive to international and domestic interest.

House - SA buyer; Howe Keld, Keswick - Swiss buyer; West Vale, Ambleside - Swiss buyer; Keswick Park? Hotel - Chinese buyer; Stone Cross Manor, Kendal - Chinese connection to the purchase.

Currently selling Windermere Manor Hotel and we have had interest from all over the world - Thailand, Japan, South Africa and the USA.

Over the last 12 months we have seen a picking up of international market. The fall in the value of the pound is making UK hotels much relatively inexpensive, down roughly 15 or 20 per cent compared to a year ago.

Cumbria in general and the Lake District in particular is always a buoyant and is one of the best places for hotel sales after London and Edinburgh.

We sell around 100 hotels every year. Cumbria is always an important part of our business. Buyers are a mix. Smaller hotels will attract owner operators while larger ones are attractive to investors who are looking for a return on their investment.

The smaller hotels are often bought as a lifestyle choice by people who love the idea of living in the Lake District.

Business in the Lake District seems to be quite strong at present. Cumbria has got over the floods of 2015 and is showing some robustness. It is back on track and moving forward.

Manchester, 7th March 2017 – Borrowdale Gates Hotel, one of the Lake District’s foremost country house hotels, has been sold from an asking price of £3.75m by the specialist hotels team at real estate advisors Colliers International.

Acting on behalf of private owners Colin and Joy Harrison, Colliers sold the hotel at Grange-in-Borrowdale, Keswick to Fairtree Hospitality Real Estate Private Equity Fund, the Guernsey investment vehicle managed by international asset management company Fairtree Capital.

Borrowdale Gates Hotel offers 33 en-suite bedrooms and 13 staff bedrooms in a building converted from a mid-19thcentury private home and set in gardens and grounds with views along Borrowdale.

The acquisition by Fairtree represents its third investment in the UK hospitality market with more to follow.

The Fairtree Fund already owns two further hotels in Cornwall - The Old Quay House and The Rosevine. Recently reviewed by The Telegraph, The Rosevine was given a 9/10 rating for its ability to infuse the "comforts of a luxury hotel with the independence of your own apartment", and received praise for its service, style and value for money.

Providence Hospitality, a UK-wide hospitality management company, has secured contracts to manage all the properties owned by Fairtree in addition to its presence in South Africa.

Joe Bester, Director of Providence Hospitality, said: “Providence prides itself on the highest quality of customer care, and we are keen to maintain our reputation in these new locations.”

Julian Troup, head of UK hotels agency at Colliers International, secured the sale to Fairtree, and said: “The acquisition of Borrowdale Gates Hotel, a genuinely outstanding example of a country house hotel in the Lake District, by Fairtree, is a further example of an international buyer securing a prime provincial hotel.

“We are witnessing an increasing flow of such deals, particularly involving buyers from the Far East and Asia, because the devaluation of sterling following the EU Referendum means such transactions are now 20 per cent less expensive than a year ago, thereby making the UK hospitality market a very attractive prospect for buyers overseas.”

Julian said about 10 per cent of UK hotels sold by Colliers International in 2016 were acquired by international buyers.

Cumbria is the most productive county for the hotels’ team at Colliers with 18 hotel and hospitality sales in the past 12 months, he added.