The Hindu Business Line : The Raj from Taj

Leaning back on white-painted metal chairs, enjoying a cup of steaming tea on the green lawns, with jacaranda trees in full bloom and their flowers spread like a mauve carpet on the lawns, and the All Saints Church towering in the backdrop, you may well think it’s a slice of life from Ol’ Blighty.

For the diehard Anglophile, The Gateway Hotel, Coonoor, in the Nilgiris is hauntingly evocative of years gone by, what with its quaint colonial style cottages, some of them at least 150 years old, sprawled over four acres of landscaped gardens with colourful flowerbeds. The view of misty blue mountains, dotted with homes clinging to their sides, and clouds lazily roaming the skies, the bracing coolness a relief from the scorching summer heat of the plains, all add to the Gateway’s very English charm.

Driving into the hotel you are enveloped by a sense of calmness. Time here doesn’t run at a mad pace. Ushered into a wood-panelled reception area, you are seated in a couch which, hearsay has it, belonged to Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India in the 17th century! Seated on history and looking through the windows all you can see is bursts of green and the pink profusion of a vast bougainvillea bush that shrouds the front of the hotel.

Given the antiquity of the hotel, there is a lot of wood panelling — the floorboards, the restaurant, reception area, the ten-seater Hampton bar with its English touch, all giving a warm feel to the place. It can get quite chilly in the winter, assures R. Muralidharan, the efficient Operations Manager of the hotel, as we chat in the foyer of the restaurant and bar. Above the fireplace is an enormous deer head, antlers and all, whose placard declares it was shot in Masinagudi in 1922!

You tiptoe past its beady eyes fixed on you, as you walk to your cottage with its small porch overlooking cheery flowerbeds, a small patch of lawn in front, with more white-painted chairs and umbrellas completing the summery picture. We look forward to a lazy morning, curled up with a good book while sipping some Nonsuch tea. Muralidharan says the 32-room property was expanded by previous owners at different times so they come in all sizes. The larger rooms, all wood-panelled of course, have large fireplaces where the ever-obliging housekeeping staff will stoke up a crackling fire for the night.

While the hotel retains a wonderful old-world character, it isn’t short on modern amenities. The cottages have electric kettles to make your cuppa, and large, flat-screen TVs. The big bathrooms have modern amenities, and are undergoing a facelift from June to make them more contemporary, with shower closets, new flooring, washbasins, and so on, says Muralidharan.

Over lunch at the cosy restaurant which overlooks, what else, more lawns and flowers, we meet Sous Chef D. Ramalingam. Bustling about the room and overseeing the buffet lunch he says his first love is baking; his skills are apparent the next morning, in the soft breads and hot muffins we are treated to at breakfast. The Gateway has purchased the adjoining property, a large building, earlier used as a godown for tea. Muralidharan and the chef take us on a walkabout: while the old building with large verandahs housing the office will be transformed into an ayurveda and yoga as well as fitness centre, Chef Ramalingam is putting the large tracts of land to good use. Growing a variety of vegetables — from iceberg lettuce to zucchini, carrots and cauliflower — this patch supplies at least 30 per cent of the hotel’s requirement of fresh vegetables. The chef pulls out some carrots and we get to taste them fresh.

Till last September, this property was called, quite appropriately, The Taj Garden Retreat, but has now seen a transformation as The Gateway Hotel, Church Road, Coonoor, a change which R. Pasupathy, General Manager of the Coonoor property as well as the Savoy Hotel in Ooty, assures you is more fundamental than cosmetic.

While retaining its old-world flavour, the Coonoor Hotel has been integrated into the new Gateway chain of mid-market hotels which the Taj group announced last year. So, while the Taj will keep the hotel property as quaint as it is, the services it will offer will be uniform across the 18 Taj hotels which are now subsumed under the Gateway chain (50 are planned in the near term).

He adds that re-branding the hotel has helped as it has ensured a level of standardisation in terms of the kinds of cuisine and services offered. “We have made it a business-class hotel and more because of the ambience we offer; but we are retaining the old with the new.” Having the Taj brand raised levels of expectations between what a top-end Taj brand would offer and, say, a mid-market hotel. “The levels are totally different, but a Gateway hotel chain can create its own identity.”

Now, as in Coonoor and other Gateway properties, the staff uniforms are the same, bath kits, toiletries, coffee shop menu, signage are all similar, to give a level of standardisation, explains Pasupathy. The chain has its own yoga channel as well.

The Gateway chain will target a more youthful set of people, even though heritage properties such as Coonoor will draw their own nostalgic set of old-timers.

History dwells here

The earliest recorded existence of Hampton Manor (as The Gateway Hotel was known) was 1857, listed in the name of E.B. Thomas.

It was built as a priority to the All Saints Church. It was sold to Capt. Francis Haulton of Bedford, England, in 1865. These areas in Coonoor are still called Bedford. Hampton was sold to Mary St. George Bevan in 1907. She and Mary Agnes Marjoribank s converted the place to a hotel in 1908, which operated till 1920. After the death of Mary Bevan and much legal proceedings, Charlie Burton Henderson (later Ellery) niece of Bevan acquired Hampton.

Ellery did not allow Indians, except an odd Prince or High Court Judge, into Hampton. Many houses surrounding the Hampton, as it was known well over the South, were named similarly, such as South Hampton, Little Hampton, More Hampton, Hampton Row and so on. Guests were asked for their regimental badge, the design of which was displayed on the table corner at dinner much to the delight of guests. The little train coming up from Mettupalayam (which still chugs up the hills) was visible from Hampton in those days. In 1946, Gordon Cameron, an Australian serviceman, came to Hampton.

Cameron had a penchant for horses and making money on quick deals. Having overstayed at the Hampton, he was asked to vacate the room. Refusing to do so, he had an argument with Ellery upon when she said, “If you want the room, buy the place,” to which Cameron promptly agreed. The money he paid for Hampton was acquired by conning a US serviceman into buying a godown full of damaged mosquito nets in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Thus on July 8, 1946, Cameron came to own Hampton.

Cameron was a law unto himself and started a bar and a grill, which to this day serves as the Conference Hall. He built rooms dispensing with Municipal permission, not bothering with proper plans. Having run out of money chasing big ideas, Cameron sold Hampton to Sushila L. Dass in 1977. The property came under the Taj banner in 1990 and was carefully renovated to retain its old character, adding all modern amenities.

Source: The Gateway Hotel, Coonoor

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