Our hotel scent is mission fig, so this is the hotel scent that’s been created for Adare Manor. It appears in a number of options. We have a scent that’s sprayed in your room and turned on, it goes into diffusers right throughout the public areas, we sell candling in the boutique…” Anita Higgins is in full flight. She is director of business development at Adare Manor and is detailing just one element of the new-and-improved Adare Manor after its refurbishment and restoration programme ahead of its unveiling to the public on 2 October.

JP McManus bought Adare Manor from American Tom Kane in January 2015, and his team of hospitality professionals is pulling out all the stops to make sure the luxury hotel is going to be very, well, luxurious.

The silverware that will be used at Adare Manor is Robbe and Berking. This is a German brand “and it is the highest-plated silverware you’ll find anywhere. It’s as close as you’ll get to solid silver. It’s like walking into a jewellers and buying your cutlery from a jeweller, as opposed to buying it from a cutlery shop,” food and beverage manager Brian Lawlor tells me.

The towels are 650g, bathmats are 1,200g while the hotel will be using “crispy white double-piped” linen complete with the A (for Adare Manor) logo. The pillows (which are the biggest, fluffiest pillows Irish Country Living has ever seen) in the manor house are filled with goose feathers.

Mattress toppers made from goose feathers will also adorn the beds. The linen is 300-thread-count and 100% cotton and is very delicate, so Adare Manor will wash it in its own in-house laundry, located on site and manned by laundry manager Freda O’Sullivan.

The upgraded Adare Manor will have a new leisure facility: a La Mer spa, which is the only La Mer spa in the UK and Ireland. While another new addition is a ballroom with a seating capacity of 350 people. The ballroom sits overlooking the river at the front of the hotel and 28 weddings are booked in already.

The reason we got a sneak peak into Adare Manor prior to its opening is because three recruitment open days were held there recently.

The hotel had 170 positions to fill, on top of the 109 already employed there.

“So the total workforce here will be over 350 people, give or take. We aim to open early October, and we’re on target for that,” general manager Paul Heery tells Irish Country Living.

Just some of the positions Adare Manor is recruiting for include receptionists, concierge, chefs, valet and doormen, green-keeping, front-of-house food and beverage and back-of-house stewarding roles.

But what kind of qualities are sought in employees? General manager Paul Heery, who moved from the Gleneagles hotel in Scotland (and has also worked in the Connaught Hotel in London and the Merrion Hotel in Dublin) says: “We’re really looking for the natural ability, the engagement, the behavioural side of things. We feel that we have a very strong leadership team, so we can certainly train them.

“We have the development programmes and the resources to help them. But it is exciting, and the excitement is bringing a lot of people to us, so we’re fortunate about that.”

Paul says: “The people that we want to have – and the majority of people who work in hospitality – they have a love for it and they want to work with people; they feel comfortable talking to people for the first time. We want to create special memories for our guests here at Adare, so that they keep coming back – but natural engagement, positive people, nice smile: that’s the calibre of people we want to try and attract.”

Given Paul has worked in such high-end hotels, he’s met many celebrities over the course of his career, but that’s not what he likes most about his job. “It is exciting, and there’s always a profile and an expectation, but the one that excites me probably a little bit more is the guest for a special occasion. This is the person who’s actually saved up to celebrate something, and it’s how can you make that a lot more memorable and a lot more special.

“The person who’s a celeb or so forth, it becomes their day-to-day, it means nothing to them. But when you actually see somebody walking out the door – a genuine person – it means a lot more, and I think that’s a lot more rewarding to me personally. If you get a simple thank-you note or letter from somebody who fits that, then you say to yourself: ‘This is why you do the job.’”

Employee profile

Everything in the hotel is bespoke and custom made, and a number of staff already employed are spending a considerable portion of their time designing and procuring hotel items.

One of these staff members is Louise Hassett. Louise studied at Shannon College of Hotel Management and then was hired directly on to The Four Seasons’ graduate programme, going on to work with them for 10 years. She opened the Four Seasons in Toronto.

“I’m the director of rooms, so I oversee all the front of house. I oversee the boutique, the spa, laundry, housekeeping. The entire division activities falls under my realm.

“It’s a massive responsibility, yes, but it’s very exciting.

“I’m working on everything that has to be purchased and sought prior to opening, so all the linens that have to be brought in, all the products: sourcing for the boutique, the spa, all the consumable items – so in terms of slippers, our lovely umbrella those things had to be sought out first.

“You find your vendors, you find your suppliers, you go through the design process and then we go through where we are now – which is the hiring process and trying to get the team on board – and then everyone is trained up on the systems that we have in place.

“Then, of course, we have to build the team. So there’s always a four-week training for the team, when they first come on board, so everyone gets mass training together. It’s probably one of the only times the hotel has everyone together in one spot at the very beginning.

“It’s a unique experience and it’s always so, so exciting and then everyone kind of breaks up into their little areas and they get everything ready, from purchasing pens to beds.

“It’s the second [hotel opening] I’ve done. If it were my first one, I think it would be very daunting, but I’ve done one before so it’s familiar to me. It’s exciting and daunting at the same time because you could wake up in the middle of the night and be like: ‘I didn’t order pillows!’” CL