The Pantheon at Portmeirion
Views of Dwyryd estuary
Mirror Room sculpture
The Mirror Room
Suite
Hotel foyer fireplace
Location, Location!
Bridge House
Toll house sheep cut-out
Battery signage
The Mirror Room
Statue outside the Neptune building
Programme 1
Overview
This romantic hotel is built into the rocky cliffs of the Portmeirion estuary, in the grounds of a fantasy Italianate village. It was previously a private house, around which the now famous ‘village' was conceived and created by the eccentric architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. Portmeirion's beauty and romance make it a popular destination for those seeking a unique holiday experience, and fans of the cult 1960s TV series ‘The Prisoner', which was filmed in the grounds, are regular visitors.
Architect
Sir Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis (1883-1978) was an English-born, Wales-based architect of Welsh extraction, known primarily as the creator of Portmeirion and its surrounding Italianate village.
History
The main hotel was built around 1850. It was extended by the architect in 1926 and 1930, and listed Grade 2 in 1971. Portmeirion was the original mansion of ‘Aber Iâ', and was described as "one of the most picturesque of all summer residences to be found on the sea-coast of Wales". When Williams-Ellis discovered it in 1925 he was faced with dereliction and an overgrown wilderness. "I obviously had to use the old house on the sea's edge for something and, if I wanted a village, it would have to have an economic basis and the obvious thing seemed to be tourism. It was at Easter 1926, after less than a year's preparation, that the original old house, little altered, opened somewhat tentatively as an unlicensed hotel." From 1954-76 he filled in the details, which were typically classical or Palladian in style.
Features
Ther
e are fourteen rooms and sprawling suites. No two rooms are alike, and efforts have been made to ensure that each room is luxuriously and individually decorated. The rooms have views either of the estuary or the mountains, and there's the ‘Peacock Suite', where Edward Vll stayed for his investiture. Sir Terence Conran, taking a 1930's ocean steamer as a starting point, redesigned the Hotel Portmeirion dining room overlooking the estuary, using European walnut panelling, crystal chandeliers and roman blinds.