ARC was born from the desire to create luxurious and exclusive group stays, inspired by years of experience designing 5-star hotels. Eleanor and her partner combine architectural design with a warm, personal atmosphere in accommodations in the Cotswolds and Cornwall. At ARC, it's all about coming together, creating memories, and enjoying a beautiful setting with exceptional comfort. Learn more about the owners and their story here!
My Wife, Eleanor, and I have run an international Design & Architecture office (Parti Studio) since graduation from the Royal College of Art in 2016. We started ARC after specialising in 5* hotels and wanted to bring something new—5* quality but for exclusive use, for large families or groups to spend quality time together. ARC has locations in the Cotswolds (ARC Painswick) and Cornwall (ARC Padstow). They have been so successful that we are renovating another six hotels for 2024/25 ARC launches.
We love design and travel as much as we can to immerse ourselves in it. For work, we lived in China, Thailand, and Australia when we started Parti, so we enjoy visiting different cultures and learning from them. We also travel a lot within the UK with friends. The produce and food culture in places like Cornwall and other counties is amazing, and we love to cook.
ARC was a response to a problem we encountered while travelling in large groups. The quality often drops, and hotels are impersonal and don’t cater well to groups. During the Covid pandemic, we travelled across the country looking for properties that would make the perfect ARC. We visited over 50 before settling on ARC Painswick. We already knew Painswick as one of the most beautiful towns in the Cotswolds, having visited it in our childhood.
As architects, the trick for us is always re-imagining the building. We remove all 20th-century additions to reveal the bones of the historic building. Then, we carefully unify the material palettes and often use bespoke furniture to tie the rooms together.
We created an internal courtyard (very unusual in the UK) by removing a series of extensions and adding a long, slim kitchen link. This is my favourite space in ARC Painswick; every room in ARC overlooks this courtyard, where we planted a cherry blossom.
It’s architectural, gallery-like, and very focused on materials.
Painswick is known as the Queen of the Cotswolds. The materials are sensational. It has cute cafés, pubs, and wonderful walking paths. What could be better?
All ARC properties integrate heat pumps, and wherever possible, we eliminate gas and oil entirely.
We created ARC to give guests a place to gather and make memories. We call ARC “reimagining the country house for designed experiences.”
Staying in ARC is about discovery. All the little touches, the corners, and moments of interaction with your family and the architecture.
All our bedrooms are equally luxurious—ensuite, super king beds—so no one gets a bad room! We also have the best kitchens, equipped with Miele appliances and 6-meter-long kitchen islands made from a single piece of stainless steel!
When guests tell us they’ve made memories they will cherish forever.
Use the ARC lobby to bring in help when you need it—chefs, housekeepers, babysitters, and more.