Ian and Christa Taylor sell No 15 Great Pulteney

Ian and Christa Taylor have agreed to sell No 15 Great Pulteney in Bath to the family-owned Guest Holdings for an undisclosed amount.

The Taylors, who operated the 40-bedroom hotel as well as the Bird in Bath and Homewood in nearby Freshford under their Kaleidoscope Collection, completed the sale on Friday 11 October. Staff including managing director Jonathan Walker are set to remain at the hotel under the new ownership of first-time hoteliers Tristan, James and Tom Guest.

Ian Taylor said they had not intended to sell the property, but had been approached by the Guests with “the right price” and they were “very impressed” by the brothers, who they believe would take the property forward.

Taylor added the sale would allow them to “look for another project” although no further acquisitions are yet in the pipeline.

No 15 Great Pulteney was at one time owned and run as a hotel by the Salvation Army until its acquisition in 2014 by Italian property company Geco Spa, which intended to transform it into a boutique business with the Vineyard Group as the operator. However, a change of heart by Geco Spa led to the property being sold to the Taylors, who opened No 15 Great Pulteney in December 2016.

The Guest brothers said: “We are very much looking forward to getting to know and working with the No 15 team and becoming a part of the Bath community. No 15 is a unique property and we aim to preserve all that is special about what the Taylors and the highly committed team at No 15 team have created, and we will invest to ensure its continued growth.”

There are no plans to sell the other two Bath hotels within the Kaleidoscope Collection. Taylor said the plan was to invest another £750,000 in the Bird and £2.5-3m on Homewood, with 10 new bedrooms due to open at the latter next June, work on a new event space and the spa facilities set to begin in September 2020, and hopes to add shepherd’s huts, treehouses and even a small farm to its 20 acres of land eventually.

He said: “Homewood is a five-year project at least. We really have to get it known as a great destination and it’s not quite there yet.”

The Taylors previously owned the Abbey hotel in Bath, which they sold to KE Hotels last year, and the 21-bedroom Villa at Henrietta Park in Bath, which was sold to the Indian-owned Roseate Hotels & Resorts in 2017.

They also owned the Cotswold House hotel and the Noel Arms in Chipping Campden until they sold the two properties in 2007. During their eight-year tenure, they scooped a rarely matched three Catey awards – Independent Hotel of the Year in 2005 and Best Independent Marketing Campaign in 2005 and 2007.