Chapter One: Time well spent

It is a simple question, but not an easy one to answer. A beautiful room matters. So does a remarkable view, a warm welcome and food worth savouring. Yet the stays we remember tend to be about something less tangible: how a place made us feel, who we shared it with and whether, for a little while, we felt able to be fully present.

That question sits at the heart of Elysium Collection. For CEO James Houlston, the ambition was never simply to create a group of hotels. It was to create places where time feels genuinely well spent.

“For me, time well spent is not about filling every hour. Quite often, it is the opposite. It is having the space to slow down, to reconnect with the people you came away with, or simply to notice where you are. As a traveller, those are the moments I carry home. As a business owner, they are what I want our teams to make possible for every guest.

My route into hospitality began with a curiosity about places and the people who use them. I have always been drawn to complicated projects and to the challenge of creating something people can genuinely love. Around 2014, I started looking more closely at holidays in the UK. More people wanted to explore what was on their doorstep, but too many hotels had not kept pace with the way modern guests wanted to travel. There was room for something more thoughtful: high-quality but relaxed, rooted in its setting and full of character.”

“Then came Falmouth.

I had seen an advert for St Michaels and, after an old friend encouraged me to take a look, travelled down to Cornwall. I fell for the location almost immediately and went on to become its owner. This was before Elysium Collection existed, but it was the experience that first brought my ideas about hospitality into focus. What stayed with me was not the scale of the project or the mechanics of making it work. It was the feeling of standing there, looking towards Gyllyngvase Beach, and sensing what the place could give people.”

“The setting was extraordinary, and I could see an opportunity to create something that truly belonged there. But the moment something clicked for me was more instinctive than that. Guests did not need another formal hotel experience that could have existed anywhere. They wanted a place that belonged to Cornwall: somewhere generous and restorative, where the surroundings, the welcome and the experience all worked together.”

“My years as the owner of St Michaels became an important chapter in that origin story. As the hotel evolved into one of the South West’s leading resorts, it became a place to learn – about what guests notice, what they value and what brings them back. The answer was rarely one grand gesture. It was the accumulation of small, considered details: service that felt natural rather than scripted; wellness shaped by the landscape; a sense of luxury without stiffness; and an invitation to enjoy the place on your own terms.

That chapter came before Elysium, but the lessons stayed with me. They became the starting point for Elysium Collection, – and that is where my focus is now. We are building a new collection in which every hotel celebrates its corner of the UK rather than smoothing away what makes it distinctive. We want beautiful settings and thoughtful experiences to feel welcoming, not intimidating. Above all, we want guests to leave with more than the memory of a comfortable room. We want them to remember a walk, a conversation, a long lunch, a quiet hour or an unexpected moment that made the trip feel entirely their own.

Perhaps that is what time well spent really means. Not an itinerary completed or a checklist ticked off, but the feeling that you were present for your own life while you were away.”

This is the first chapter of Field Notes: an ongoing exploration of the places, people and ideas shaping Elysium Collection. We will return to the question of what makes a stay unforgettable from different perspectives. For now, it begins here, – with a view across the Cornish coast, a moment of possibility and the belief that the best hospitality gives us something increasingly precious: time that feels like our own.