Hillside Ventnor

About Hillside Ventnor

Hillside is an eighteenth-century thatched house set on the slope above Ventnor, looking down over the town and out to sea. Its Danish owner has stripped the interiors back and combined the original period features with clean-lined Scandinavian furniture, white walls and good lighting - a combination that is unusual on the Island and gives the place a distinctly un-English calm.

The house doubles as a gallery. More than three hundred and fifty pieces of CoBrA and Scandinavian art hang throughout the public rooms and corridors, and guests are free to wander and look. Bedrooms are in the main house and in a converted stable block, all en suite, with a mix of doubles, suites and self-contained apartments. The apartment rooms suit longer stays. Children under twelve are not accepted and the hotel does not take pets, so evenings are quiet.

There is a restaurant open to residents and non-residents, supplied in part by the hotel's own vegetable garden and free-ranging chickens. Menus change with what is picked, and the cooking is straightforward rather than elaborate. Breakfast makes good use of the same produce. Grounds run to five acres and include a tennis court and lawns with sea views.

The setting is a short walk from Ventnor Botanic Garden and about fifteen minutes downhill into the town and Esplanade - the walk back up is steep, so a car helps. Hillside suits couples, walkers and anyone with an interest in design or art who wants somewhere considered rather than conventionally hotel-like. Book direct through the hotel's own site for the best rate.