Review of Four Seasons Hampshire, by The TI Review Team

Follow the winding gravel driveway in Dogmersfield Park that leads to Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire, and it is hard to imagine that behind such a fine traditional Georgian manor-house façade lie 133 guest rooms, including 22 suites, two restaurants, a couple of bars and an enormous spa and health club. Having fallen into the hands of the right developers, architects and management company, this listed 18th-century country mansion has been saved from a status as lost treasure and is enjoying a fresh glory as a magnificent hotel an hour south of London.

HWO Architects were entrusted with the challenge of restoring this English stately, and have given it an impressive new lease of five-star life. "The fact that you're dealing with such a precious mansion and such expressive Georgian architecture, means that the design needed to be very simple and understated," says Nicolas Khalili. The brief was to enhance all the period features while injecting every cutting-edge extra to sate the most demanding of modern-day hankerings. There was also the matter of abiding to a tome of stringent regulations. A bit like asking a pianist to play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, while keeping one hand behind their back? If it was, the end result has nonetheless proven itself as music to the ears of fans of the Four Seasons. Specialists in conversion, this is enough to rival the magic the Canadian company worked on an ex-convent on Via Gesu at the heart of Milan's fashion walk.

Built in 1728 and set in 500 acres of heritage-listed gardens and woodlands, the blueprint for the Four Seasons Hampshire was hardly chopped liver to start off with; although creating an elegant destination hotel bursting with personality out of a property that was most recently an IT company's headquarters certainly had an element of silk purse expected from a pig's ear. "Having been an office, the property was in an okay condition but it needed some flair and a sympathetic approach to the design to make it work," says Khalili. "We looked at creating the whole experience out of the flow within the property. Simple details, vernacular materials, the handmade brickwork, the colour of the render - these sort of touches make it work as an overall experience - it was not about making an architectural statement." Pointing out that it's not only rare to be able to fit 135 rooms and a spa into an existing property, an added hurdle was to ensure that any extensions blended within the landscape. To Khalili, the highest compliment came during the project when someone asked after completion of work: "When will you finish refurbishing the building?" Having heeded the outcome of many negotiations with local authorities and conservation officers, the satisfying result is a setting that is as suited to a Merchant Ivory film production as it is 21st-century sybarites.

The expert blend of classic and modern British furnishings and interior design comes care of Richmond International. Traditional heavy drapes, Turner etchings and antique armoires hark back to the main building's heritage, and a stroll through glass walkways leads to latterday luxe in the glossy bar, restaurant and spa areas. But again, it's not just what you can see that makes it unique, but what cannot be spotted. "In terms of the detail," explains Khalili, "the fact that a lot of the original features have been left visible, such as in the spa where you see exposed beams, yet all the plumbing, electricity and fire regulations required of a modern hotel have been acknowledged. One of the mundane but crucial parts of this design was ensuring that all the services are there, but go unnoticed."

Indeed, there's much more to the operational feats performed than meets the eye. As guests sip their afternoon tea from Wedgwood cups to the background tinkle of classical music, gazing over meadows contemplating whether to go horseriding or shooting, they can be sure that there are 300 members of staff beavering away to afford them this unadulterated comfort and tranquillity. And due to additional structural wizardry, most of the back-of-house activity is hidden in a warren of utility rooms sunken behind the hotel, and thanks to which the linen is always as crisp as can be, floral arrangements are forever fresh and the 24-hour room service food is presented with as much panache as it is in Seasons, the modern European restaurant.

But the strings to this Four Seasons' bow don't stop there. The estate includes two lakes, a canal for boating, clay-pigeon shooting, and a horse-riding centre. As for where the hoofed were kept in centuries past, the original stable block has been transformed into 27,000 sq ft of state-of-the art spa and health club space, offering 15 treatment rooms, a quartz crystal sauna and amethyst steam rooms, relaxation and exercise rooms. Thanks to the hotel's own herb garden, signature treatments marry the impressive grounds with the holistic and pampering agenda, and fresh organically grown plants are used in therapies such as Soothing Chamomile and Sage Massage. Should visitors tear themselves from the Espa temptations, they can go for a dip in a vast 20'x8' conservatory-housed pool or outdoor vitality pool, or lunch in Café Sante.

With occupancy at a maximum within months of opening, it's hard to imagine a better-suited incarnation of a structure that stands on the same spot as a former Henry VIII stopover, and one can only lament a one-time proposal for a luxury flat conversion. "This building couldn't exist viably without being a luxury hotel, especially with its equestrian and fishing credentials, and all the other things that make the sing and dance," says Khalili. "Everyone thinks of regeneration being when you take a patch of the East End of London and make it pretty, but in fact this is a great example. Lots of jobs have been created in the area, there is a first-class spa for the local market, thousands of trees have been planted, horses are back in the paddocks - and there's far less traffic than there ever was when it was computer HQ." As the business users, young families and weekend-awayers all flocking to the family-run hotel group's latest outpost will undoubtedly testify, its reinvention as country resort was the best property development decision ever made.