Grasmere hotel undergoing £1m luxury upgrade (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Grasmere hotel undergoing £1m luxury upgrade

4:33pm Monday 7th February 2011 in Grasmere news By Helen Perkins, Reporter

JOBS are set to be created as a Lake District hotel stages a £1m luxury upgrade.

Chris Carss, the owner of Rothay Garden Hotel, said at least two more staff would be needed at the Grasmere venue when it relaunches, this summer.

Builders have flattened the seven-year-old restaurant and demolished part of the hotel to add an array of new features to draw in tourists.

Mr Carss, 53, said banks had been persuaded to back plans after seeing the hotel, which is set in two-acres of land, grow in popularity by more than 70 per cent in three years.

The final stage of refurbishment will see Kendal builders Cox & Allen replace the old restaurant with a £450,000 bespoke copper-topped dining room.

“This is going to be a major focal point for the hotel,” said Mr Carss. “It's a huge investment to gain only six extra tables but we needed it.”

Around £400,000 has been spent on spa designs, with herbal sauna, hot tub, heated reflexology walkway, monsoon showers and aroma release rooms.

A further £200,000 has also been invested on groundfloor riverside and garden suites.

The four-star venue has been the subject of £2.5m in refurbishments during the past three years.

Its Newcastle-born owner, who won regional and national awards this year, lives next to the 30-bedroom hotel and said he had invested 20 years of his life in building the business.

“If I had achieved everything early it wouldn’t have meant as much,” he said.

“I started with nothing but I’ve always believed you should be everything you can be.”

After leaving school at 16, Mr Carss became a waiter and worked his way up at county hotels, corporate function venues, stately homes and self catering parks, before buying the Grasmere venue with four partners in 1990 and buying it outright several years later.