Case study, boutique hotel
Guest rooms, suites and a private dining space at a country house hotel in the Cotswolds. Named here with the client’s permission.
Project overview
Ellenborough Park is a country house hotel on the edge of Cheltenham, close to the racecourse and the Cotswold hills. Ilze Reinke Interiors designed a series of its guest rooms and suites, along with The Horse Box, an intimate private dining space.
This is the kind of project that asks two things at once. Each room has to feel warm, considered and personal the moment a guest walks in, and it has to keep looking that way through constant use, season after season. That balance, comfort and character on one side, durability and discipline on the other, sits at the heart of Ilze’s boutique hotel work.
The rooms were treated individually rather than rolled out to a single template, which is what gives a country house hotel its sense of place. Among them are named suites that nod to the area’s racing heritage, including the Kauto Star Suite and the Arkle Suite.
Ellenborough Park is one of two boutique hotels Ilze names in her portfolio, alongside Lea Marston in Warwickshire. Both are shared with the client’s permission, and both stand behind the same simple idea that runs through all of her work.
“Interiors shaped around personality, family and lifestyle, not fashion.”
Ilze Reinke, founder
Location and project type
The hotel sits just outside Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, in the heart of the Cotswolds. It is exactly the kind of setting, and the kind of guest, that Ilze’s studio is built around: quality led, discreet, and expecting a finished result rather than a project to manage.
Hospitality interiors of this level are a natural extension of full home design. The brief is broader, the wear is heavier and the programme is tighter, but the instinct is the same. Understand how a space will really be used, then design around it.
The brief
The work called for guest rooms and suites that feel residential and warm rather than standard hospitality, each with its own character, and all able to stand up to the demands of a busy country house hotel.
A hotel like Ellenborough Park trades on how a stay feels, and a great deal of that feeling is set in the room. Guests notice comfort, light, texture and the small details long before they could name why a space works. The task was to give each room that sense of ease and individuality, so that a night here feels less like a hotel and more like a very well considered home.
Design approach
Character room by room. Rather than repeat one look, each room and suite was allowed its own personality, layered with texture, colour and detail so that no two stays feel identical. It is the difference between a hotel that has been decorated and one that has been designed.
Warmth that lasts. Finishes and furnishings were chosen to feel generous and inviting, and to keep that quality through the wear of continual guest use. In hospitality, longevity is part of good taste, not a compromise on it.
Detail carried through. The same care runs from the largest pieces to the final styling layer, so a room reads as complete and intentional. The Horse Box private dining space extends that thinking beyond the bedrooms into how guests gather and eat.
Twenty years of judgement. Behind the calm result is more than twenty years of deciding what belongs in a room and what does not. That editing is quiet on the page and obvious in person.
Services delivered
The overall direction for the rooms and suites, setting the palette, mood and level of detail.
Individual interior design across a series of guest rooms and suites, including named suites such as the Kauto Star and Arkle.
Selection and styling of furniture, fabrics and the finishing details that make each room feel resolved.
The Horse Box, an intimate dining space that carries the same considered feel beyond the bedrooms.
Photography
Every photograph here is of the actual rooms and suites at Ellenborough Park.
Understand how a space will really be used, then design around it.
Ilze Reinke, founder
Ellenborough Park is named here with the client’s permission, and the photography is of the real rooms. For a studio whose reputation is built on referral and repeat work, being trusted to design guest spaces in a hotel of this standing is proof in itself.
What this shows
Designing guest rooms in a country house hotel is a demanding test. The work is seen by hundreds of people, judged in an instant, and lived in hard. Delivering it well is evidence of a studio that can hold a high standard at scale and under pressure.
For a boutique hotel, that is a direct signal of capability. For a private client, it is reassurance. If Ilze can give a hotel room the warmth of a home, she can give your home the polish of a very good hotel. The same eye, applied either way.
Begin
Whether it is a boutique hotel or a full home, a short private discovery call is the simplest place to start. Tell Ilze a little about the property and the result you have in mind.
Prefer to message? WhatsApp or email ilze@ilzereinkeinteriors.com
Related
More work in the portfolio,
or read about full home interior design
and Ilze.
Let’s Work Together!
Copyright © 2026 Ilze Reinke Interiors