The Cove, Cornwall

by Isabel Wolff

Above: The Cove

The History: Perched high on a hill top in a wooded valley on the Lands End peninsula, The Cove, three miles from Penzance, was built in 1850 by a granite merchant, John Freeman, who supplied the granite used to build the Houses of Parliament. At the turn of the century Cliff House, as it was then known, became a magnet for famous Newlyn artists such as Sir Alfred Munnings and Stanhope Forbes. In the 1960s it was turned into the Lamorna Cove Hotel before being reborn as a temple of sybaritic modernity in 2005 and was simply branded ‘The Cove’. The 13 rooms are actually small apartments, which means that guests can either self-cater or choose to use the hotel’s facilities. The Minack theatre and the pretty fishing village of Mousehole are both a short drive away, as are some of the best surfing beaches in Europe – notably Porthcurno and Sennen Cove.

The Room: The rooms are furnished to exacting standards in a calming duck egg blue, and have been given the full Phillipe Starck treatment with lavish contemporary interiors, polished wooden floors, suede upholstery, state-of-the-art kitchens and sublime limestone bathrooms. Varying in size, the apartments, some of which have their own terraces, are suitable for couples or families and all have a washing machine, dishwasher and microwave plus plasma TV, DVD players and wireless broadband.

The Restaurant: The restaurant is tiny – just ten small tables – so you wouldn’t want to talk too loudly, but Ben Tunnicliffe’s food is wonderful. Everything is locally produced and organic. Recommended dishes are the spider crab and fennel soup and the rib-eye steak. There are plenty of champagnes in the cellar, but the Camel Valley sparkling wine from North Cornwall is delicious. If you want to soak up the local atmosphere the Wink Inn is a three minute stroll down the hill.

The Upside: The knee-tremblingly lovely sea views. The Atlantic shimmers in the distance beyond the lido blue of the heated outdoor pool. There is a large terrace, and three acres of lovely gardens with a path winding down to the small harbour and pebbled cove at Lamorna. The Cove also has a children’s play area (complete with lop-eared rabbits), a sauna, a gymnasium and a spa offering a wide range of thalassotherapy treatments.

The Downside: It’s over-designed, over-heated and over-priced. Our apartment was £254 per night without dinner – plus it’s hard to find more than five channels on the TV.

The Extras: The biggest extra – apart from the croissants which arrive, warm and yeasty each morning in their own cotton bag – is that the apartments are for sale. If you have between £190,000 and £385,000 to spare you can have your very own apartment, on a 999 year residential lease. The on-site management team will let it for you as a five-star self-catering accommodation with the benefit of hotel servicing to generate rental income. They take 25 per cent cut for this (plus VAT), but promise yields of five per cent.

The Details: Apartments sleeping 2-4 from £214 per night, apartments sleeping up to six from £318 per night.

The Cove, Lamorna Cove, Nr Penzance, Cornwall, TR19 6XH, 01736 731411
www.thecovecornwall.com