New hotel spa that goes beyond the exotic

Tommy Barker dips a toe into the luxury spa at Maryborough House.

IT is a long, long way from the ‘dew baths’ that former gardeners at Maryborough House would have taken on the lawns.

Dew baths are a traditional rural manner of washing, where people would roll in the grass and early morning dew, in their pelt, for an all-over wash. In Celtic Tiger Ireland dew baths are away with the fairies; spa resorts, leisure centres and pampering palaces are awash with cash.

Coming right in at the top end of that rising tide is the Maryborough Spa, representing a €13.5 million investment by Maryborough House Hotel owner Dan O’Sullivan.

The strikingly designed new buildings, laid out on three levels with pavilion shapes, a grass roof and 13 exotic spa bedrooms, internal and external waterfalls and a raft of treatment rooms, “is on a par with the best anywhere in the world,” asserts Mr O’Sullivan of the facility which is to open next week. And, he should know, as he and his design team got to visit some of the very best over the last three years of preparation.

Coming on board is world brand leader ESPA, who are involved in six ESPA centres in Ireland, and design of the quite exceptional facility — it is going to a be a talking point of the chattering classes, and not just for the prices — is by Michele Sweeney of architects Opperman Associates.

The hotel is on 24 acres of Douglas suburban land in Cork city, a short drive to an international airport, but already a world away by virtue of it superb and mature grounds, with some specimen trees 250 and 300 years old.

The centrepiece is the original 1700s large period house, added to in the mid-1990s with 94 bedrooms and a contemporary hotel wing: the three-level spa takes it even further up the curve.

Finishes within are lush and plush, expensive polished stone, polished concrete, natural timbers, glass, and lots and lots of water. Then, some more water.

Water flows down channels on the main stone staircase at the start of your ‘journey’, and a river-feature culminating in a waterfall links several of the pavilions and levels, with visitors walking over it on sheets of glass in one section, and below it under a glass ceiling at the next level down.

The only sounds you hear, says Mr O’Sullivan, are the ones the therapists and designers want you to hear, so lots of rustling water, cascading water, murmuring streams, swaying bamboos, and oh, taped dolphin/whale sounds as well, as much part of the spa experience as hot stones, scented candles and assorted algae, unguents, oils and (shades of the dew bath,) mud.

The spa, and the associated new leisure club with all new, all-zinging, all-dancing TechnoGym equipment, has added 24 jobs to the hotel’s employment team, headed up by manager Justin McCarthy who has been with the hotel from day one. Each piece of computer-monitored/personal progress reporting gym equipment has its own in-built plasma TV screen, bringing ‘lounging’ in front of the telly to new, puritanical ‘lunging’ heights.

Apart from dedicated spa treatment rooms, men’s and women’s separate vitality pools with nine massaging spouts and jets, rock saunas, steam rooms and ice fountains (for your skin, not your drinks), the investment and building project includes 13 spa bedrooms.

These adventurous spots with double jacuzzis and leather chaises longue at the end of the beds are wholly contemporary, and part-clinical, part-cosseting, basically rooms apart from the humdrum. With paintings on the ceilings over the beds the rooms will be, eh, popular with energised couples who are revitalised from their pick-me-up spa treatments. Pick an oil from the bath ‘menu,’ and staff will have a scented bath ready for your arrival, champagne or mineral water on ice, or fresh fruit dipped in melted chocolate too, probably as an antidote to all the inspired wellness and inner purity.

The country’s suddenly burgeoning spa industry expects the demand for de-stressing breaks and pampering treatment to grow five-fold over the next few years, and it is already a competitive market. This one comes in at the top end of the scale, as its prices might suggest: a number of one hour 50 minutes treatments weigh in at 195, the Purva Karma four hand synchronised massage (two therapists) is 325 for just under two hours. Other 25-minute treatments such as Indian head massage average 50, while other beauty treatments range from 50 to 95, typically for 55 minute sessions, while an array of massages and wraps are 95/100.

The Maryborough Spa expects business and visitors to come from the UK, where they now have a sales team — 75% of its hotel Monday to Friday business comes from overseas.

The half-day and day-long relaxation and therapy sessions are also going to be popular with Irish guests, and locals as well, but daily throughput of clients is deliberately going to be on the low side, no more than 20 or 30 people a day as the push is on quality, not quantity. Dan O’Sullivan must be one of the few business people around prepared to splash out €13.5 million on a venture — and hoping to see very few people in there.