The Newt, in Somerset, is arguably one of Britain’s most ambitious hospitality projects. The Hadspen estate, three miles from Bruton, has been a Somerset landmark for three centuries. When South Africans Karen Roos and Koos Bekker bought it in 2013, they embarked on a multi-million-dollar transformation of the Georgian house into a sumptuous hotel and spa. The grounds encompass meticulously tended formal gardens, orchards planted with 70 different varieties of apple, a Roman villa, an apiary, a deer park, a grotto, and a museum tracing the history of gardening from biblical Eden to the present. Down the road, a creamery churns out mozzarella from the estate’s water-buffalo herd, while gallons of prizewinning cider are cold-fermented in the cellar. There are enough diversions here to fill a long weekend without ever retracing your steps.
Yet Roos and Bekker are not ones to rest on their laurels. This month, they unveiled their latest venture, Yarlington Lodge, an exclusive-use property with 16 bedrooms, a few minutes’ drive away along West Country lanes frothy with cow parsley.
