Hotel and members club Birch Selsdon creates a new type of community
Part hotel, part members club and all parts fun: A-rnd, Sella Concept and Sebastian Cox collaborate to inspire urban escapists.
Photography: Inna Kostukovsky
Set within 200 acres of rolling hills and green space, part hotel, part members club Birch continues its quest to re-energise its guests as it prepares to open its second venue, Selsdon, in Spring 2023. Created as an “intervention from the judgements, expectations and constraints of daily life”, Birch’s spaces are designed with community at their core, to give guests the time and freedom to pause, think and create. Driven to create a community where people and ideas are diverse – but interests and values are shared – Birch ensures that prospective members will be a good match for the environment by asking them a few choice questions during the booking process.
Home to 181 bedrooms, two restaurants, three bars, wellness space, coworking hub, creative studios and several communal spaces (including a light- bathed Orangerie), the new venue invites guests to swap the concrete jungle for natural wilderness, a spot of personal rewilding, and a chance to relish their stay amongst other likeminded working urban escapists. Polished, grown up, a little bit wild, describes its literature. It’s this cultural currency that ensured the rave reviews of Birch’s debut opening, Birch (Cheshunt), which launched to great acclaim in 2020.
This time around, Birch updated the usual brief – embody its signature touch of craft and fun, but this time with an extra splash of glamour. Peeling back the layers of the estate’s 19th century gothic-style mansion, which was first developed into a hotel in the 1920s, Birch assigned its re-modelling to leading interior design and architecture studio A-nrd and and designers Sella Concept.
A-nrd, led by Alessio Nardi and Lukas Persakova, have inserted a contemporary layer on top of the existing red-brick mansion. Respectful of the building’s history and architecture and mindful of minimising waste, the existing infrastructure has been adapted and repurposed where possible. Modernity and timelessness were the keywords, hence A-nrd have woven together a carefully curated palette of colours, materials and décor, bringing the vision to life with the work of local makers and artists.
Sella Concept has injected a hint of opulence to some of Birch Selsdon’s key spaces: earthy glamour in the signature restaurant, velvet and Chinoiserie in the bar and dark, glossy walls in the speakeasy – offering a range of environments for guests to feel inspired within.
The hotel’s rooms have been set up to remove the stresses of daily life, which means no TVs and no mundane work desks. Each room is furnished with bedside tables crafted by designer, maker and environmentalist Sebastian Cox using wood from the estate, while carefully curated work by exciting names in contemporary British art adorn the walls.
Along with ample space for indoor working, those who stay at the hotel as a work retreat can also enjoy its unique Green Coworking proposition, which offers sheltered outdoor desk spaces for those who want to immerse themselves in nature while getting on with tasks and to-do lists. Dedicated pottery, screen-printing, making and cookery studios will host an evolving programme of workshops and masterclasses.
Outside, the rewilding of Birch (Selsdon)’s 200 acres of land has also been masterminded by Cox. What was once a golf course is now one of London’s largest rewilding projects with big ambitions for reviving the land and local biodiversity and actively contributing to the greening of London.
In an age which has reminded us of the value of community and connection, people are seeking out social interactions in ways that feel more enriching than ever before. Hybrid private members’ clubs such as Birch reflect this spirit, steering the focus away from status or affiliations, and instead towards exploration, conversation and culture.
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