A 118-year-old English Manor Hotel on British Columbia's Vancouver Island Just Reopened With 1,500 Antiques and Set Pieces From Your Favorite TV Shows

Travel + Leisure

a day ago

Rosemead's quiet, forest-like setting gives it an English countryside feel, yet it's only a 10-minute drive from downtown Victoria.
The owner collected antiques from movie and TV sets, his favorite London hotels, and at least 50 manor estates.
Janevca's dining room is anchored by a huge faux tree 'blooming' with cascading pink cherry blossoms; the leaves will change out seasonally.
Modern amenities co-exist with heritage—think clawfoot tubs and classic mantle clocks, but also self-flushing heated toilets with high-tech Kohler bidets.
The cushy king beds are topped with $23,000 mattresses from 100-year-old luxury Swedish label Duxiana.
The magnetism of Rosemead House begins not inside, but at street level. To reach the hilltop hotel in Esquimalt, British Columbia, guests pass through the actual Buckingham Palace gates used on the London set of Netflix's The Crown and climb the tree-lined driveway to a regal porte-cochère and a large manor door.
The Edwardian mansion, originally designed as a private home in 1906 by architect Samuel Maclure, has lived many lives. Most recently it was the Old English Inn: cherished by locals who got married or honeymooned there, chastised by a few as the Fawlty Towers of the area, and universally known to be showing its age. In 2015, Lenny Moy, president and founder of real estate development company Aragon Properties, purchased it and the surrounding land for a master-planned community of heritage-inspired condos called Oakwoods, located behind the manor.
Turns out, the hotel restoration would become Moy's decade-long, antique-fueled passion project, and it began while visiting one of his daughters in London who was attending fashion school there. 'I started going to auctions, mostly virtually, and buying furniture slowly,' Moy says. 'At first, it was just a few 18th- and 19th-century accent pieces.' Eventually, he'd purchased from more than 50 manor estates, movie set sales, and legendary London hotels The Dorchester and The Savoy. 'I knew I had to buy 130 percent to get to a solid 100 percent.' Crate by carefully packaged crate, a couple thousand treasures crossed the pond, filling an 8,000-square-foot warehouse at least twice over. Today, around 1,500 of these antiques decorate Rosemead House where Moy and interior designer Karen Wichert followed the phrase 'Heritage Meets Discovery' as their north star, blending past with present everywhere. The result is a decadent, fearless, money-is-no-object historical rebirth painted with a maximalist brush. Interior of the hotel lobby.
I'm Rosemead's very first guest, staying in the Lancaster Room, which I reach by climbing two sets of staircases, one thrillingly narrow. With maze-like hallways and no elevator, a guide to one's room is essential at first. ('This way, Miss Nanton…') With peekaboo ocean views, a reading nook, and countless antiques—including a tiny vintage Royal Crown Derby China seal paperweight from England that I desperately want to take home to my toddler—the 433-square-foot room is comfy, not stuffy, despite its heirloom touches and ancient bones.
At once I'm wrapped up in the step-back-in-time fantasy of it all. That energy hits deepest in the Crown Mezzanine library, just above the lobby. I sink into a coral-hued chesterfield chair and look up at a gargantuan faux 17th-century Rembrandt, which doesn't look fake at all. The red curtains and podiums adjacent, as well as my seat, are all from the original Queen's bedroom set of The Crown. (As Moy tells me later, the painting was also purchased from a set; Kevin Hart's 2024 heist film, Lift , I learn . )
Quickly at home in my new manor life, I explore the manicured grounds—complete with a small amphitheatre that will likely host future music performances—before pulling up a barstool at in-house restaurant Janevca's busy lounge for a pre-dinner cocktail. Sipping a bright Amalfi Stone Sour mixed with London dry gin and limoncello, a restored stained-glass window to my left catches the golden hour light. It's one of the original manor windows, making it easy to imagine a century's worth of guests sitting right here before me doing just the same.
Here, my full review and everything you need to know about Rosemead House.
There are 14 rooms in the Manor Collection, located inside the historic building, and another 14 in the Grove Collection, in a new building behind the main house. The latter are slightly more accessibly priced and five are pet-friendly. Long-stay suites with kitchens will open in due course. The most opulent room at Rosemead? The Manor Collection's Dynasty Suite, decorated in a full Chinoiserie theme with a vaulted ceiling, staircase leading up to a second-floor bedroom, and private balcony.
'Each suite is like a real-life museum,' says Moy while touring me through a handful of the 28 rooms, each with its own UK-inspired name. Edwardian writing desks with intricate inlays, gilded-framed mirrors, and reupholstered vintage furnishings live in tandem with patterned William Morris wallpaper on the walls, Ann Sacks basketweave motif tiles on the bathroom floors, and minibars concealed inside sideboards from The Dorchester auction (this way, you don't hear them hum). It's a detailed mash-up of hues, textures, and patterns, but doesn't feel overwhelming. 'We really set out to respect the original design, adding modern elements and layers of color to evolve it,' Moy adds. To that end, each room's unique, sometimes quirky, architecture is taken into account, like the Oxford Loft's sharply slanted ceiling balanced by adjacent bell-shaped chandeliers, or Canterbury Corner's exposed timber trusses complemented by a vintage wooden globe (open it up to find a secret bar inside). The interior of Janevca by Chef Andrea Alridge.
Alchemic wood-fired cooking is the culinary core of Janevca Kitchen & Lounge, which opened well before the hotel in fall 2024 (and is a portmanteau of Moy's children's names: Janelle, Evan, Cailee). It's helmed by executive chef Andrea Alridge, who previously cooked at Vancouver's coveted Savio Volpe. Downstairs there are two event spaces as well as a private-dining Granite Room with a rock wall showcasing racks of fine wine in front of it. Moy has plans to grow Rosemead's collection to upward of 6,000 bottles. The bar inside the Janevca lounge.
Back at Janevca, chef Alridge's Filipino and Jamaican roots shape the menu and a stainless steel Argentine-style grill burning maple, alder, and applewood is the genesis of most dishes. When I head down to dinner, the fully booked restaurant buzzes while wine director Jacques Lacoste pours me a smooth glass of beaujolais and a gas fireplace 'crackles' nearby. The Hokkaido scallop crudo with calamansi citrus and pops of smoky pyanggang sauce was exceptional, while the signature half-chicken with siu haau sauce and Janevca crisp is one of chef Alridge's personal favorites. For dessert, the Peach Melba is a sweet storytelling triumph, because not only does pastry chef Brian Bradley encase it in a thin layer of marzipan to look just like a peach, complete with leaves and a chocolate-formed pit, he serves it on historic dinnerware purchased from The Savoy, where Peach Melba was invented in the late-1800s. Are they, perhaps, the same plates the first Peach Melbas were eaten off of? The staff cannot confirm nor deny, but as I eat my dessert, I think yes.
Rosemead has a two-story Wellness Centre complete with a state-of-the-art gym and Peloton bikes. At Salt & Ivy spa, decorated with Himalayan salt walls and antique mirrors, I opt for an Oceanic Renewal face and body treatment using local Seaflora products. My therapist buffs and moisturizes my tired skin with nutrient-rich seaweed body polish and a firming mask before laying shiver-inducing strands of detoxifying fresh seaweed across my back. It's all harvested in nearby Sooke, known for its high diversity of 500+ seaweed varieties. Rosemead has future plans to offer seaweed-foraging experiences there in its pristine intertidal zone with Seaflora.
Off-property, a 10-minute drive away, check into Havn, a WWII-era barge converted into a wellness spa docked in Victoria's Inner Harbour. After checking in, I sip a superfood-based Majik Algae Aloe elixir, turn completely numb from a four-minute cold plunge, then slather myself with a ladle full of exfoliating salt to warm up. For the next three hours I rinse, sauna, hot tub, lounge, and repeat before walking to dinner at Rabbit Rabbit wine bar, where executive chef Billy Nguyen (a good friend of Janevca's chef Alridge) plates excellent French-Asian fare in a room full of vibes and vinyl. If you go, ask for a booth with a Champagne button.
Given its more-than-100-year pedigree, the manor house itself is a heritage-designated property, so those suites are only accessible by stairs, but the Mayfair Room in the Grove Collection is ADA-compliant. As for sustainability, the hotel's park-like setting with 100-year-old heritage trees were what first attracted Moy to the land, so it was key to hold on to as many as possible during renovations and the condo development. To that end, Garry Oak meadows were preserved, an on-site nursery was created to transplant trees, and felled heritage trees were repurposed for Janevca's dining room tables, wooden accents in the spa, and more. Reclaimed bricks from the manor's previous retaining walls show up in the driveways and yet more brick was repurposed from a building in Victoria.
To get to Rosemead from Vancouver, I recommend the fastest and most scenic route, a 35-minute Helijet flight direct from Vancouver Harbour to Victoria Harbour. It flies you over green Gulf Islands before a stunning, get-your-camera-ready coastal landing near downtown Victoria, from which a car or Uber whisks you to Rosemead in 15 minutes. Alternatively, guests can fly directly into Victoria International Airport or take BC Ferries from Tsawwassen (Vancouver) to Swartz Bay (Victoria).
Located in the quiet Saxe Point neighborhood, a stay at Rosemead lends itself to nature walks, not unlike a British country estate. I stroll five minutes to reach the craggy cliffs of Macaulay Point Park where rare maritime meadows grow, found only in a few coastal habitats along southeastern Vancouver Island. Dense-flowered lupin and purple sanicle pop up amongst long-abandoned gun battlements, and I breathe in the salty Salish Sea air as small fishing boats chug by.
Back in my room later, I play into my historic fairytale by writing a note longhand on light pink RH-embossed stationery before propping myself up on pillows in my reading nook. Sure, I'm scrolling on my phone, but it feels like I'm scrolling while time-traveling and I'm very into that.
Rosemead House will open fully to guests in July 2025, and bookings are now open online. Nightly rates start at $515 for the Manor Collection and $440 for the Grove Collection. The hotel is not yet part of any loyalty or credit card reward programs.
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