illustration: Jan Barron
The Bay Hotel continues a major renovation exercise with two new rooms for guests about to open in the next two weeks, this will make 18 rooms in total available.
The work which is seeing major effort both inside and outside is restoring the building to a former glory.
Talking to the Pevensey Bay Journal today (26 June), go-ahead manager, Karen Hudson, told the newspaper that the new rooms will be ‘deluxe’ with modern fixtures and fittings that also have an element of the Victorian about them.
The work in the first phase of the building renovation has seen bi-fold doors installed at the front of the building and a new public bar area renovation which has brought light into that aspect of the building. The extensive work is to continue through the summer.
A pocket art gallery is also now open in the lounge area of the hotel, with featured artists appearing on a monthly basis. The gallery was opened in May by James Braxton, television personality and antiques expert, and one of the stars of BBC Antiques Road Trip
The Bay Hotel has a packed programme of music events through the summer, and into the autumn, including the Jazz Groove Collective with a Tapas night on 29 June, through to two more nights with the popular Ian Gallagher Tribute Act, and his “Kings of Swing” (3 August) and Michael Buble Tribute (12 October). Both nights include an evening meal to make the night swing, in true tribute lounge style.
When work is completed at the Bay Hotel there is every indication that the former glory of the hotel will be seen again, purposed for a new era.
One Social Friendship club now meets on a Monday evening in the new public bar space. They are joined on different days by two local art groups (one from Stone Cross) utilising the new public bar space.
As Karen explains, the aim of the renovation is to achieve ‘a modern feel with nice period touches”, she adds ‘a renovation, not knocking the soul out”.
