Opened at last

Friday morning and the hotel swings into it’s final preparation for the opening. Frank is sanding the kitchen ceiling, Heather is hoovering the carpets, Bob is fitting the front door knob, Micaela is preparing the food, Lesley is looking after the rooms, Mary is still hanging pictures, Trevor is fitting the last few electric points and Lorraine is putting the finishing touches to the curtains. Ady is painting the front and the window cleaners arrive and tell me that their pole isn't long enough.

Meanwhile the local florists are making a fortune as bouquet after bouquet arrives from well-wishers across the UK. The attention has been immense and we were delighted to receive the Mayor and Mayoress of Eastbourne as well as numerous people involved in the tourist industry including the travel writer from the Times who stayed for two nights with us.

Our first guests arrive and we escort then to their rooms. They love the colour scheme, they admire the paintings and they adore the minimalist style ....unfortunately , the furniture is still being assembled which is why the style is minimalist!!!

At 4.00pm on Friday 30 May, the da Vinci hotel is declared open. May we take this opportunity to thank everyone responsible for helping us to open as well as the hundreds of visitors to the exhibition and the sixteen guests who stayed in our rooms on our opening night.

We hope you will visit us again sometime soon.



The da Vinci art exhibition is open every Saturday and Sunday throughout June and July from 11.00am to 5.00pm when the artists will be in attendance. Visits at other times are more than welcome by arrangement.

Hotel bookings can be made via our website at www.davinci.uk.com or by email to contact@davinci.uk.com or by telephone on 01323 727173

The final countdown 1

One day to go and the self assembly furniture is mostly assembled although some of those cupboard doors are definitely fitted back to front - how can that happen? The plugs are on the wall, the spotlights are on the ceiling and the bedding is on the beds and I am just beginning to think we might open on time when the rain returns and washes away the paint that had just been applied to the outside pillars.

Inside the hotel, the kitchen has undergone an amazing transformation with a new fireproofed ceiling which has still to be sanded and painted. The recurring damp patch in the breakfast room has been resolved and Lorraine is putting the finishing touched to the curtains in the kandinsky room. In the meantime, I am hanging paintings on every expanse of white wall and wondering when it will end.

The answer is at 2am when the last curtain track is fixed to the wall in the Klimt room and we breathe a sigh of relief that our guests will not be exposing themselves to the bypassers in Howard Square. Tomorrow is a busy day with not enough hours before 4pm and the arrival of the Mayor and the opening of the da Vinci Hotel - Eastbourne's first (and only) art hotel. The journey continues....

The final countdown 2

Less than a week to the official opening and are still no sign that we will be ready for opening. The scaffolding is still up at the front and the roof in the kitchen looks a long way from completion. Meanwhile, the guest list for the opening seems to be growing by the minute and we have just found out that the Mayor will be making an appearance

Along with the response we also get a two page compilation of how to behave....
• The Mayor arrives at the time scheduled and it is usual for him/her to be received at the entrance of the venue by the host
• If people are seated it is usual for the host to arrange for the Mayor to be announced upon entering the venue
• When addressing a male Mayor the mode of address is “Mr Mayor”. When speaking directly to a female Mayor the mode of address is “Madam Mayor”.
• Speaking about or referring to the Mayor the usual form is “The Worshipful the Mayor”
• Please reserve a parking space for the Mayoral car as near to the reception entrance as possible.
• Please indicate arrival point (i.e. main entrance) and supply map of venue/local area.

etc, etc, etc.

Another special guest on the evening is Jim Davis who is the travel writer with the Times newspaper. Jim is visiting Eastbourne to write an article about the town and council thought it might be an idea for him to stay in one of our Eastbourne’s prestige hotels ....unfortunately they were all full so he is staying with us!!!

Time for some more self assembly .....

The final countdown 3

Just over a week to the official opening and are we ready ....I should be so lucky. Four rooms are painted but it seems to be taking an eternity to self assemble wardrobes, drawers, tables and bedside lockers. Even my expertise as a mathematician does not allow me to decide which way those legs should go. In the end, I go with my intuition and find all the drawers are upside down.

In the meantime, we find ourselves in something of a room crisis as more people ask to stay over than we can accommodate here ...or at the Gladwyn which is already full. Foolishly, I decide to try to open two more single rooms in order to accommodate Tim and Norman. The ploy looks doomed to failure when we remove the old bedside lights and half the wall comes with it.

Tim and Norman are two of our regular and long standing guests who I would also classify as friends ....although I am not sure they will when they see the state of the rooms. They have both been guests at the Gladwyn for as long as I can remember and serve as a useful barometer for the changes we have instituted over time. I hope they like the new place.

Fortunately for us the Gladwyn continues to thrive under the new management of Trevor and Gary who seem to be getting more rave reviews on TripAdvisor and LateRooms than we ever did. Trevor’s breakfasts are well received and Gary is doing a grand job looking after the guests and making sure that the rooms are clean and tidy.

Time for some more self assembly .....

20 days to go !!!

20 days to opening and the (four) rooms, beds, carpets, furniture and paintings are nearly ready ....so this is one deadline we might even make. In the meantime, we would like to invite you and your friends to our latest art exhibition entitled “Unwrapped” .

This second exhibition is intended to celebrate the official opening of the da Vinci Hotel as Eastbourne’s premier ART hotel. The exhibition is open to the public from 11.00am each day from Saturday 31st May 2008.

We very much look forward to seeing you.



PS. My numbering system is quite simple really....the staircase on the number 9 side leads to the odd numbered rooms and the staircase on the number 10 side leads to the even numbered rooms.

21 days to go !!

The opening date is set for the 30th of May. The original plan was to get eight rooms ready by then but it seems like we will be opening with four as the rest will not be ready. Eventually after much discussion (arguments) we have decided the themes and the colours for the rooms and the number system.

It may sound a bit odd but Paul has come with this brilliant idea of numbering all the rooms on the number 10 side of building as even numbers i.e. 102, 104, 106, 108 ... and all the rooms on the number 9 side as odd numbers i.e. 101, 103, 105, 107, ...but I cannot work out which are odds and which are evens!!!

Room 106 is the Monet room and is painted in Azure taken from the colour of sky in Monet's paintings. Room 108 is the Kandinsky room and is painted in Moroccan Red from Kandinsky's abstract paintings. On the second floor we have the Rothko room, painted Glowing Amber, and the Klimt room, being painted Deep Emerald.

The following pictures show (1) the back conservatory - which will probably not ready on the opening date, (2) the first landing painted in our signature colour, (3) the wall colour in the Kandinsky room and (4) the wall colour in the Monet room

What a load of rubbish

Our work on the hotel continues to generate an amount of rubbish including that from the dislodged wall at the back of the hotel. It is a pity that most of the rubbish ends up in the back garden and, in spite of our desperate attempts to recycle, we have found ourselves having to hire a succession of skips at £250 a go.

Unfortunately, our attempts at refuse disposal are clearly not quick enough for one of our neighbours who decided to report us to the Environmental Health service...although on what grounds I am still not quite sure. Anyway, in a desperate attempt to remain good neighbours, we decided to hire an even bigger skip and were quoted a fee of £460.

Kingspan Waste Recycling tells me on their website (at www.kingspanwaste.co.uk) that their “company strategy is to provide a 'no hassle' reliable service to all our customers”. Whilst I am happy to overlook the three occasions when they promised to turn up but did not bother, the extra £515 which they are now trying to charge me because my rubbish was too heavy is the last straw.