A stylised surprise hiding at the end of a shady Lamorna lane, The Cove is about as far away from Cornwall’s clotted cream teas and out-of-the-oven pasties as you can get. Mixing self-catering with hotel surroundings, this house – dating back to the 1850s – offers a first-class self-catering experience without smudging its luxury boutique hotel stamp. The result is a collection of 13 high-design, hide-away apartments – with the optional benefits of hotel service. A restaurant, terrace bar and room service are handily on standby, whilst high-spec kitchens in self-sufficient apartments provide total shove-everything-in-the-car-and-turn-up independence. This is stylish seclusion – but with service. ‘Self-catering lite’, if you like: perfect for escaping couples and groups alike.
Almost tropical, bamboo-fringed Cornish lanes lead you steeply up to The Cove. Look up and you’ll spy the original rooftop bell silhouetted against Cornish clouds; a reminder that this was once Cliff House, belonging to a granite quarry-owning Lamornan local who would call his workers to prayer. At the turn of the century, the house became a Temperance hotel and mecca for famous Newlyn artists. But it was the Sixties that put this place on the Cornish-Wide-Web, when George Harrison and John Gielgud added their names to the guestbook. Now, fast-forward to today’s facelift and its hotel status has been taken by the horns, shaken up into an apart-hotel and freshly re-booted as The Cove.
The scent of giant stargazer lilies hits you as you wind through the reception, past the restaurant, to the cluster of apartments within and around the original building. Sun-faded aquamarine tones sweep throughout the apart-hotel contrasting with the sharp, contemporary white lines, splashes of glass and pristine brushed silver fittings. Sea views lurk around every corner; from your shower, from the pool, from the terrace bar… a pair of leather tub chairs positioned before oversized windows are the elbow-nudgingly gentle reminder that you’re only a five minute amble down to rocky Lamorna cove.
Whether booking an apartment for four friends or blocking out enough for a party of 20, The Cove’s rooms share similar facilities, furnishings and flourishes; serene sea-chic décor, sleek glass coffee tables, deep, plump sofas and Perspex balloon-back chairs fill the spacious bedrooms and living areas. Each apartment’s double en suite bedroom, double sofa bed, and fully equipped kitchen stretch out over soothingly-solid oak flooring. Yet every one is a stand-alone signature suite. A four-poster frame here, a floor-to-ceiling sea-view there; these apartments with high-design flair are individual and roomy enough for seaside-seeking groups to kick back and relax in comfort.
State-of-the-art kitchens are kitted out with everything you need, but a warm draw-string bag of croissants and pains au chocolate is dropped onto your doorstep every morning nonetheless – just to make the whole process a little easier. Despite the self-catering tag, apartments are serviced daily. Staff won’t wash up, but they will turn on your dishwasher. However, to really take the ‘self’ out of self-catering, dining is also offered around a green smoked-glass chimney in The Restaurant – and room service is on-tap so you can switch in and out of hotel service, as you like.
With a heated outdoor pool, terrace bar and manicured gardens falling gently down the valley towards the sea, it’s tempting not to venture much further than Lamorna cove. But the basking shark-infested dramatic Cornish coastline is ripe for exploring; Land’s End, Penzance and the pretty fishing village of Mousehole are all just minutes away. And The Cove’s come-and-go-as-you-please self-catering streak makes this all the more appealing.
Whether you’re packing a picnic and heading to the famous Minack cliff-face theatre, or visiting the white witch at nearby St Buryan (where Dustin Hoffman’s Straw Dogs was filmed), self-catering has never been so addictively sophisticated. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about Cornwall. Reaching deep into your soul, it pulls out buckets and spadefuls of childhood memories and makes you never want to leave. And in this lily-scented designer setting, frankly why would you?
Reviewed by Charlotte Crisp
