Deborah Clark, owner of Southernhay House Hotel and Burgh Island, gave the keynote speech at Stephens Scown’s ‘Business Class’ briefing earlier today (Tuesday 15 November).
Ms Clark and her husband Tony Orchard bought the property’s freehold and transformed the building from disused offices into a high-quality elegant boutique hotel with 10 bedrooms, a private dining room, bar and restaurant. It took seven months to complete the project, which cost over £3 million and opened in June this year.
The former corporate lawyer addressed the audience of around 100 delegates at The Rougemont Hotel in Exeter and explained how there was no secret to her success, but that integrity, respect and hard work is key to everything she does.
She said, “I wanted to demonstrate how an entrepreneurial mind works and all the facets that I have to hold together in order to bring a project like this to fruition. Anyone who knows me knows that I fire off in all directions, but it’s about micro-managing every single area, every step of the way throughout the recreation and restoration to the opening and beyond, from the nuts and bolts of the operation to the strategic planning and how they all need to run in parallel.
“When people congratulate us on the restoration of Southernhay House, of course it is a great compliment, but really it has been about recreating the building, finding its story and voice and following that through. I wanted to be involved in every single part of this process because it is that that brings coherence and integrity.”
Deborah said that she had drawn lessons from her experience as a lawyer and had been in the thick of the project throughout, “With our self-imposed limitations, we simply didn’t have time for anything else during the build programme. It is all consuming and in a way, it became its own creature. I think I was also incredibly sensitive to Southernhay House; it becomes so personal that really you’re marketing a bit of your soul.”
Ms Clark, who also owns the well-renowned Burgh Island Hotel near Bigbury-on-Sea in Devon, explained how she had moved from the legal sector into hospitality.
She said, “Even after 10 years of working in this business, the principles and ethos has not changed. All the staff and everyone involved needs to buy into the concept, they need to understand it and ‘get’ it. You have to be absolutely explicit from the beginning and work really hard to maintain the high standards. The local business community in Exeter has been absolutely brilliant and really welcoming - they ‘got it’ and Southernhay House is doing very well.”
Robert Camp, managing partner at Stephens Scown LLP, said: “Deborah is a really enthusiastic and knowledgeable business person and hearing from her today was hugely inspirational. It was great that the audience, made up of Exeter’s business leaders, were able to learn about Deborah’s latest project in more detail – this was extremely valuable. We are very proud that our ‘Business Class’ events in the city attract such prestigious speakers who are able to tell their interesting stories in such an engaging way and look forward to the next event.”
Following the seminar, Deborah took questions from the audience, “I was delighted to be asked to do this, to get up there and talk about something a little bit different. I think our approach is very different to other hoteliers – it’s far more technical than people might think.”
Deborah Clark, a University of Cambridge law graduate, has also been instrumental in launching a new ‘Think Locally’ guide aimed at promoting independent businesses in Exeter.
She explained, “Exeter has got so much going for it and Southernhay House ties in really nicely with the city’s Georgian past. I really thought that Exeter was missing out on promoting its quirky independence. There are plenty of vibrant independent traders putting their money on the line and doing creative things in the city and this guide really fills that void.”
Stephens Scown, one of Devon and Cornwall’s largest law firms with offices in Exeter, Truro and St Austell, runs regular ‘Business Class’ events across the two counties. For more information about Stephens Scown visit www.stephens-scown.co.uk
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