Heckfield Place - A Luxury Eco-Friendly English Hotel

Stories,Travel,Organic Luxury

Heckfield Place – A Luxury Eco-Friendly English Hotel

United Kingdom

Abbigale Shi May 24, 2021

An historic English estate, turned into an eco-friendly, elegant hotel, set in over 400 acres in the Hampshire countryside.

Heckfield Place reimagines what a hotel can look like by uniting simplicity and grandeur. As a historical English estate, Heckfield Place curates a unique guest experience, one that eloquently combines natural living, modern luxuries, and sustainability. Having worked at Heckfield Place since 2018 as General Manager, Olivia Richli describes the hotel as one that instills a sense of tranquility, allowing its guests to be more mindful not only of themselves but of their surroundings.

Tucked away in the Hampshire countryside, Heckfield Place provides an escape from the bustle of English cities. When visiting this historic location, guests are encouraged to indulge in the farmland and sprawling woods that flank the hotel while also supporting sustainable practices. In a word, Heckfield Place is an oasis, perfectly suited for those seeking a comfortable yet luxurious home away from home.

Q & A WITH Olivia Richli

MoL: Where did you grow up?

Olivia Richli : In the valleys and woods of South Wales, part of a large family with ponies and puppies

MoL: Where did you go to school?

OR: South Wales and then boarding school in Ascot and then Art School in London

MoL: What was your first job?

OR: Working behind the bar to pay the rent

MoL: How did your childhood experience influence your artistic career path?

OR: Painting, drawing, making things by hand were part of everyday life in our house. Flowers, nature were all around us and we lived in the middle of a wood and spent most of the time outdoors.

MoL: When did you first become interested in the hospitality industry?

OR: I married it. My husband introduced me to the world of hospitality and before our wedding we moved to Caithness in the North of Scotland to live on a beach, and open Ackergill Tower. I had been promised something more tropical.

MoL: How long did you work for Aman Resorts before joining Heckfield Place? What was your role there?

OR: I was privileged to work for Aman Resorts for 20 years. Starting as the Ibu Rumah Tangah or ‘housewife’ of Amanjiwo, with my husband Francois as the GM. I spent 6 years running the shop, arranging the flowers, organizing weddings and dance performances, writing the menus and learning my craft. After a year being trained to become an Aman GM in Bali, I moved to Sri Lanka to open Amangalla where I spent 10 years, and made it my home. The great leap to open Aman Venice prepared me for Europe and the western world but after 2 years I left Aman and returned to Asia to open Soneva Jani in the Maldives, where I started to learn about sustainability and how to apply this to a luxury hotel. I have been lucky enough to be General Manager in all these hotels.

MoL: What drew you to join Heckfield Place as General Manager? How does your interest in art and design intersect with your work in this role?

OR: I had never thought that I would return to the UK, loving my life in Asia and the climate. Skye Gyngell introduced me to Heckfield and persuaded me to come and have look. The beauty of the estate, the amazing gathering of people and its inspiring philosophy and intent tempted me back to English shores after 20 years away.

MoL: Where is the Heckfield Place estate? What is its history? Who owns Heckfield Place and when was it transformed into a hotel?

OR: Heckfield is a 438 acre estate an hours drive to the west of London at the northern end of the leafy county of Hampshire. At its heart is a biodynamic farm and a Georgian house dating from the 1760s. It was the home of two illustrious families, the Shaw Lefevres and the Walpoles, before spending 2 decades as a training and conference centre. The Chan family bought it in 2002 who have spent many years restoring the land and the House to what it is today. The hotel opened in September 2018, with 45 rooms, 3 beautiful restaurants championing the produce from the farm under the watchful eye of Culinary Director Skye Gyngell.

MoL: What is Heckfield Place’s philosophy in regard respecting nature? Can you tell us more about the sustainable practices at the Estate, including the woodland preservation; energy, carbon footprint, and waste reduction; farm and garden on the grounds; and zero plastic in guest rooms? What sustainable certifications does the hotel have?

OR: Heckfield is a place that gently looks forward, evolving a long view, respectful to our past but with a clear onwards perspective. We are connected to the land and conscious of its environmental commitments, slowly putting responsible foundations in place. We believe that everything begins with the soil and that nature leads the way, gently wild and not manicured. We hope to inspire by osmosis, to feel connected to a deeper community. Whether it is our biodynamic farm, tending the land with respect and without chemicals that increase the biodiversity of our little of oasis of land or our composting bays to the biomass energy center heating our hot water or our plastic free rooms. We have won awards for our sustainability commitments, but as yet do not have any certifications.

MoL: What makes Heckfield Place, one of the world’s top country-house resorts, unique? How many rooms are there at the estate and does the room experience vary

OR: Heckfield is a living place that is always evolving and different. Our ambition is to share the idea of a place that is alive and not static. That each encounter here is new and enriching. We are an old House so each room is different and each gives you a hug. From the smallest Friends Rooms to the largest of our Signature rooms, our rooms are all about thoughtful details, small gestures to make our guests feel straight at home. From the homemade cordials on arrival to the embossed with your initials wooden room key to the corn dolly Do Not Disturb sign to the alpaca-covered hot water bottles and hangers. To add to this, everything from our kitchen is homemade and where possible homegrown, from bread to butter to jams to the snacks in our beautifully designed cocktail cabinets in the room. Each room connects directly with the nature outside, even down to the Wildsmith amenities in the bathroom, that are made with ingredients from the Estate and in refillable handmade ceramic bottles. All the rooms on the ground floor of the House have access directly to the gardens and welcome dogs in all of these and provide doggie amenities to the standard of the room, and the chance for long country walks around the Estate.

MoL: What do you hope guests take away from their stay?

OR: The concept of slow time is a guiding principle intrinsic to the entire Heckfield ecosystem. The power of the Estate to alter and re-balance our perception of time and to help us slow down, reappraise it, revalue it. In doing so we hope to make our guests feel a deeper more meaningful connection to themselves, to their mind and body, to each other, to nature and everything else around them. To connect with the soil and nature’s speed. So I hope that they will take an infusion of peace and quiet home with them and a desire to return.

MoL: How do you define sustainable luxury?

OR: Staying still in a beautiful place, respecting and listening, being kind and thoughtful, not taking anything for granted. To be conscious and thoughtful every step of the way.

MoL: How does Heckfield Place support and connect with its local community? What SDGs do you implement in your business that are positively impacting the hotel’s region?

OR: It is hard to honour all 17 of the UNs SDGs, but Heckfield has worked hard towards 13 of them, with responsibility for our team, our land, our community- highlights such as 61% female staff, our Assembly cultural programme of events open to all, restoration of the soil with our bio-dynamic farm, a biomass energy centre for hot water and heating. Within the local community, we raise money for local charities and work with apprenticeship programmes. There is still so much more to do.

MoL: How has Heckfield Place dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic?

OR: There have been silver linings to the pandemic at Heckfield. Despite the challenges that Covid has posed, the estate has continued to grow and produce beautiful food and flowers, which have been sold in produce boxes to the local community and in central London through Skyes restaurants. During the lockdowns we have been able to complete behind the scenes projects from maintenance to upgrades of IT systems, web designs to training, creativity on IGTV and online webinars, that we usually never have enough time for. When we have been able to open our doors we have seen huge demand from Londoners who cannot go overseas, making new friends and introducing them to the space and nature of the English countryside.

MoL: What do you envision for Heckfield Place’s future? Can you talk more about the target sustainability goals of creating tiny houses and investing in alternative energy sources such as windmills and solar energy?

OR: Heckfield is a place that gently looks forward, that imagines what we will look like in a 100 years. A place of stewardship and custodianship to hand over to the next generation. We are researching renewable energy sources to add to the Biomass, with the possibility of windmills to power the House, the Farm and the new Bothy Spa. Across the Estate there are plans and projects that stretch into the future, from the restoration of the Farmhouse with a bakery and lab kitchen, to the creation of a tiny house community for our teams to stay in to the recreation of an old pub on the boundary of the estate. It is a refuge of continuity and slow growth, resolutely natural, elegantly evolving. Unhurried. Purposeful. Enduring.

MoL: How do you lead an eco-conscious life?

OR: Everything that we do is guided by the seasons, and we bring the outside in growing our own food and flowers to watch and wonder, to walk and breathe, to eat and nourish. Every action, as an individual, as an employer and as a business must be eco-conscious.

MoL: What advice can you give to someone interesting in a career in the sustainable hospitality industries?

OR: Walk the walk. You can go far in hospitality if you love it and are prepared to put in the hours and miss out on high days and holidays. You also need a very understanding family. For the sustainability angle, of course you can study and research, read and listen but you need to earn your stripes and hone your craft with someone you respect and can learn from. Get your hands dirty and understand from the inside. It is a slow but oh so rewarding journey and one that everyone needs to be on.