“It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” There’s a modicum of truth to the Emerson quote when the journey’s end is Keswick Hall in Virginia. The luxury resort is located amid the bucolic, rolling-hill tapestry of the Blue Ridge Mountains and is only a “Wahoo” cry away from Charlottesville and the University of Virginia.
Sure, the well-heeled traveler can copter in, but what’s the fun in that when driving the two hours from Washington, D.C., allows for a jaunt through “the Eden of the United States,” as once described by Virginia’s most famous son, Thomas Jefferson. When the landscape has been dubbed a “Journey Through Hallowed Ground,” you know are in God’s country.
And if by providence, just off Route 22 is the ethereal Keswick Hall, an 80-room resort that went through many iterations before settling in as a hotel. The property dates to 1912 when it served as a manor house. Years later it became a country club until the early 1990s when it was acquired by Bernard Ashley, the husband of tastemaker Laura Ashley, and converted it into a small boutique hotel that retained its estate home feel. That was the intent: The entire hotel was designed to feel like a luxurious home, a characteristic it still gives off today.
In 2017, it was acquired by husband-and-wife Robert and Molly Hardie, who set out on an ambitious multimillion-dollar renovation to establish what is now a true gem of the south boasting a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant and a Pete Dye-designed golf course.
Getting there wasn’t easy, but it was a labor of love for the Hardies, who beyond Keswick Hall also own The Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, under their H7 Holdings investment company. For Molly Hardie, a pediatrician by trade, who was brought up in a family business focused on real estate, the hotel bug came on the design side, working on renovation projects. She had a hand in the renovation and redesign of the guestrooms and Lemaire restaurant at one of Virginia’s most well-known and regarded hotels, The Jefferson, in Richmond, which was owned by her family at the time.
A Labor of Love
In 2012, her family purchased Keswick Hall from Orient-Express, before Molly and Robert acquired it outright five years later. That’s when the real work began. The entire property was shut down in 2018 to make way for an ambitious multi-year renovation led by Hardie and in conjunction with New York design firm Hart Howerton. Design plans and briefs were aplenty, but one of the main focuses was establishing a more sustained connection to the outdoors and nature; the wide panoramas called for it. Large windows on the back of the property already helped and Hardie and the team also added two large staircases on the back for easy guest access to the outside below. The property also combined with local artists to depict nature abstractly throughout.
The interceding pandemic worked in the hotel’s favor as it inch by inch began opening facilities before a full reopening in summer 2022, adding 42 rooms to bring it up to its current key count. Luckily for the Hardies, despite the pandemic and its attendant supply chain problems, they hedged and locked in pricing prior to the full-on outbreak.
In fact, not being able to do a huge grand reopening, Hardie said, allowed them to further cultivate a relationship with the local community, which is vital to Keswick Hall: the property, part of SLH, retains the feel of an estate home, from the arrival to stepping into the open lobby area that shoots off into opposing corridors. The Instagram-worthy infinity pool, placed toward the middle of the hotel and perched above the championship golf course, which is literally in the backyard, is one sign that this is not an average home. (For those who prefer rackets over golf clubs, there are also red-clay tennis courts on the property.)
Though design served as Hardie’s draw into hospitality, not unlike many who catch the hotel bug, ultimately, it’s the people—guests and staff—that are the glue, which kind of makes sense for someone who also works in medicine. “I love, love, love the people,” she emphatically said. “It’s those relationships that you form. My favorite part of medicine was being with patients and forming a connection within the first minute or two. That’s the part of hospitality that I love and it’s the part of being an employer that I love.”
In the three years since the hotel reopened, business has been brisk. Room rates are typically from $500 and are decidedly higher on weekends and summer months, when there is strongest demand. The hotel’s proximity to Washington, D.C., makes it a magnet for small groups, anywhere from 25 to 50 people. “People can come and have a corporate retreat here,” she said. Families visiting UVA also make up a percentage of guests.
Farther south, beyond the pastoral Keswick Hall, is another hotel owned by the Hardies that is decidedly urban: The Hermitage Hotel in Nashville. The property opened in 1906 and has operated as a hotel ever since. Hardie calls it a magical place with the intangibles that make for a special hotel. And though Keswick Hall and Hermitage are outwardly completely different, there is a thread that ties them together, which comes from the top down. “We are aligned in certain ways, such as in the pursuit of excellence in customer service and delivering a luxury experience,” Hardie said.
H7 Holdings is currently only two hotels strong, bu Hardie said there is a distinct association between Keswick Hall and The Hermitage Hotel, an unmistaken vibe. There are guests, Hardie said, who are repeat customers at both hotels. Meanwhile, should the Hardies add a third hotel, it would need to be complementary to the other two, she added.
Across the two hotels there clearly exists an impalpable thread. They are also connected in a more substantial way.
Food Matters
Both Keswick Hall and The Hermitage Hotel boast Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurants, Marigold and Drusie & Darr, respectively. Having one Jean-Georges restaurant is no easy feat; having two is unique, if not a rarity. While the bulk of his epicurean empire is in New York City, Marigold is his only restaurant in Virginia (there isn’t even one in Washington, D.C.) and Drusie & Darr is one of two in Nashville.
The Hardies always had a vision for the F&B program. Prior to Keswick Hall’s renovation, the hotel restaurant was only accessible by entering the main entrance of the property and walking through the lobby, behind the reception desk. Many were led to believe that the restaurant was solely for people staying at the hotel. This was not the vibe the Hardies wanted to give off. They wanted the restaurant to be welcoming, an invitation to anyone from anywhere—no room reservation required.
The vision was always a free-standing restaurant that had its own entrance and own aesthetic, separate from the main hotel, with an “elevated casual” feel. “That’s our favorite kind of dining,” Hardie said.
That’s just what Marigold is: bare of white-linen tablecloths or silver ice buckets; full of local ingredients with a changing menu depending on the time of year. “The magic of John-Georges is in his recipes,” Hardie said. There is a five-acre vegetable garden down the road to draw from.
Some serendipity forged the relationship. John Trevenen, managing director at Keswick Hall, previously worked at a property with a Jean-Georges restaurant, so a connection was built in. Hardie traveled to Manhattan to meet the Jean-Georges team to bounce off ideas and see if there was a fit. “It just felt like a great relationship from the start,” she said. Marigold remains the only Jean-Georges restaurant in the Mid-Atlantic, while Drusie & Darr was his first in the South.
Hardie is by no means a passive owner. She lives nearby and is at Keswick Hall multiple times per week, she said. Items having to do with landscape, design, retail or F&B run through her and she is very involved with staffing. Keswick Hall employs a director of landscape, who has been at the property for more than 15 years.
Hardie is also on the Board of Trustees of The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, a nonprofit organization that owns and operates Monticello. Two dollars of every resort fee paid at Keswick Hall goes in the form of a donation each year to Monticello.
Like other hotels and resorts, it took Keswick Hall some time to become fully staffed. “We’re now into our third year of operation and many of our key staff have been here since before we opened,” Hardie said. Attrition exists, but, as Hardie put it, “We do our very best to retain staff. We want this to be an incredible place to work.”
Longtime staff, who have been with the property since the jump, maintain a distinct pride in it. “They feel like this is their child or baby,” Hardie said.
For Hardie and her husband, business has always been a family affair. And it’s going swimmingly.
