Simon Hume-Kendall interviewed
Above: Simon Hume Kendall at Lamberhurst Vineyard
Above: Simon Hume Kendall at The Hop Farm
When the news that the Manor of Rusthall was up for sale hit the headlines, one man’s name was on everyone’s lips as a potential buyer. The 54-year-old owner of Lamberhurst Vineyard, The Hop Farm and, most recently, Bewl Water, smiles at the suggestion. With that trio under his belt, wouldn’t it be the perfect fit?
But Simon Hume-Kendall, who is also freehold owner of various local businesses, including The Swan at Lamberhurst and Smart & Simple Hotels in Tunbridge Wells, not to mention being chairman of trustees of Clydesdale Bank (Kent & Surrey region) and chairman of the Tunbridge Wells Conservatives, hasn’t got where he is today without developing a finely tuned business sense - and a strong inkling of right and wrong.
“The (Tunbridge Wells and Rusthall) Commons should belong in perpetuity to the people of Tunbridge Wells. If the borough council won’t buy the land, I will and donate it to the council. It’s absurd it should be held out to ransom – it is common land,” he says.
A different matter
Simon, who is the Lord of Aldeburgh, although he doesn’t use the title nor exercise any of his powers on his land in Suffolk, believes that the sale of the Pantiles “is a different matter, because it is an historic site”.
He admits: “It did cross my mind, but I can’t imagine an entrepreneur buying it, unless it was for vanity’s sake. If I was going to spend £10 million on a building, I’d want to buy a brand new one, with one big fantastic tenant who paid me, say, 10 per cent of the revenue.
So many things done in the name of leisure are just a rough endeavour to make people a fast buck
“The borough council could do worse than buy it, but at £10 million it is not something I would be contemplating – we invest in things that are going to be profitable.”
He certainly does, and gets understandably cross when he is misrepresented. “People say, ‘you just buy this and that’, because that’s what they read. It’s not the case at all.”
He is referring to his most recent acquisitions - The Hop Farm Country Park at Paddock Wood, and Bewl Water. The former sale was arranged privately with the then owner and his friend, Brent Pollard. “It was a focused investment that took a year to decide upon,” he tells me.
“Brent and I strategised about how we might do it, and I thought he should take over Lamberhurst, but then the worm turned. It was suddenly Lamberhurst buying The Hop Farm.
Making sense
“No sooner had we done that, than our partners in Seven Wonders of the Weald at Bewl Water announced they were going to sell, so it made sense for us to buy it – we weren’t battering down their door in a frenzied shopping spree. It was an opportunity, and if we hadn’t bought it, how long would we have had to wait before the chance came again?”
It was at this point that Simon brought in “my dear friend”, Peter Bull, who was also bidding on Bewl. “Pete knows this business inside out. We ended up buying Bewl 50/50 then decided to put Bewl and The Hop Farm in together, which gives us a big raft of new capital, and what will be a £25 million plan when the whole investment plan is executed.”
This plan includes building sympathetically designed holiday chalets on land acquired from the Whitbread Estate at The Hop Farm, which Simon also wants to make a centre for promoting Kent produce. And together with Peter Bull, a new series of waxworks, including ‘Legends of the screen, and music and sporting heroes’, is on the cards.
Meanwhile, over at Bewl, a place keen fisherman Simon knows and loves, plans are afoot. “It will be rebuilt, because Southern Water needs to raise the water level,” he reveals. “Certainly, over the next year, we’ll know more, and then we’ll re-design Bewl so that it maximizes the pleasure it can give – not by having more people, but encouraging those who do come to stay longer and enjoy it more.
“I think Bewl will finish up as a significant asset to this area, rather than being a significant site within the county, as our largest body of water in the south east. It’s under-utilised, everything is dilapidated and ill thought out –nobody seems to have cared about the customer.”
He adds: “We want to make sure that people who spend their leisure time and money with us experience something really memorable.”
Well looked after
Simon’s ambitions started young. Locally born and bred, he went to school at Holmewood House (where his three sons, aged 13, 11 and nine, are also pupils, although the eldest has just started at Bethany). His father, a gold medal Commonwealth Games swimming champion, died when he was just 14 and his younger brothers 12 and seven, although he insists “I can’t say we suffered any great deprivation; we were well looked after.”
All three boys swam and loved football and have gone on to be great achievers: Julian, 52, built up one of the biggest chains of nursing homes in the country, and was also a world champion windsurfer, while youngest brother, Rupert, 45, is chairman of Merrill Lynch. All three live in Kent the bond is close.
A family friend, John Rawlins, who brought Mateus rosé to Britain, became Simon’s mentor and, while still at school, the teenager was all set to be a wine merchant. However, after studying history at King’s College, London, Simon changed direction and went into marine insurance and shipping at Lloyds instead.
It’s not like I’m some genius like Richard Branson, I’m just a local businessman
“As a trainee,” he recalls, “my best friend was a Chinese boy called Kendall Chen who is now, I believe, one of the richest men in the world. He inherited the Energy Transportation Corporation from his father and tutored me – among the fun we had – in how to buy ships. I learned the mechanics that are required to own and operate a ship.”
It was a heady time, and the ship repair business took him all over the UK and Europe, but it was not a life compatible with starting a family. When in 1997 he experienced “some very big setbacks with the Romanian government” and decided he would rather stay in the UK, Simon, his wife Helen and young sons left London and moved to Burwash.
Simon tried a year of commuting, but hated it. “So we bought Lamberhust Vineyard and I decided to take the cut, resigned all my directorships, kept my interest in some of the companies and decided to take it easy in Kent,” he recalls.
However, ‘taking it easy’ is not something he does naturally, and Simon soon found himself lured into the wine business. “It was an entirely bankrupt industry, and there was a huge opportunity for the county and for Britain to have a coherent wine industry,” he remembers.
Fantastic partners
It was the start of the English Wines Group, and Simon is quick to praise his “fantastic partners” - Paul Brett, chief executive of the Thomson Travel Group, Nigel Wray, who owns Saracens Rugby Club and the Trocadero, and Richard Balfour-Lynn, who owns Hotel du Vin and Malmaison.
“The board of English Wines was always blessed with very driven and wealthy entrepreneurs, who have run it brilliantly,” comments Simon who, these days, remains a shareholder, but is no longer a director, although he knows each vine and is delighted that the wines grown at Lamberhurst and Tenterden are in such hot demand.
Lamberhurst itself was derelict when the Hume-Kendalls bought it, but is now a thriving enterprise. Simon is particularly proud of the newly completed 20,000sq ft office block. Typically, he is quick to praise “the top builder in this country, MacDonald Crosbie from Maidstone,” who did the work. “It is modern, but in keeping with the environment, the whole place has been enhanced by what he has done.”
So how does Simon feel about living in the middle of one of the region’s most visited tourist attractions? He laughs. “As a landowner who has his properties open to the public and lives right by a restaurant, people say don’t you mind the public, and I really don’t. I like the hubbub, especially when it is in such a beautiful environment.
“I don’t want to sit in a bloody great house, never hearing a car coming up the drive, never saying hello to people.
“We’ve never had any bad experiences in 10 years of living there. Everyone is welcome, as long as they are there with a motivation to enjoy themselves.”
Simon certainly practices what he preaches. He enjoys eating out at the Vineyard Restaurant at Lamberhurst itself, and is a big fan of Hotel du Vin in Tunbridge Wells, and also The Poacher, near Tonbridge. His spare time will find him fishing at Bewl, and he is thrilled to have recently fished there with a former member of the English fishing team and to have picked up lots of tips.
He still loves his sport, as do his boys, who have turned the large family hall into an arena for indoor cricket, soccer and rugby over the summer holidays. And while Simon is no longer involved with Crystal Palace Football Club, he is delighted to have taken up with local side Ashford Town, especially as it means all three brothers can go to matches together.
So what has brought Simon the most satisfaction in his business life? “I have been able to involve myself in so many different areas I am interested in,” he says.
Finest achievement
“It’s hard to marry all your ambitions, but I have done so many of the things I have really wanted to do – getting buildings right in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, like the Swan at Lamberhurst, then turning the Smart & Simple from the DHSS nightmare blight it was on the town into a mini landmark situation.
He adds: “It’s not like I’m some genius like Richard Branson, I’m just a local businessman. What is different, is that it is all predominantly local.”
And what does Simon regard as his finest achievement? That one is easy. “My children,” he says. “I wouldn’t burden them with huge expectations – at the moment they all want to be footballers. A good family life is so important, and I am lucky to have such a wonderful wife and sons.”
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