History & Heritage
The St Johns Hotel originated as an 11 bedroom
Guest House called the St Johns. It was named by the owner
after the crusades & the Drawing room we use today for private
dining & meetings was known as the Knights Templar Bar.
They left St Johns in a will to the gardener, housekeeper and
chauffeur, who continued to run it as a going concern.
The Housekeeper had no interest in the St
Johns Hotel and therefore gave up her right as an owner leaving the
chauffeur and the gardener as joint owners. Mr Arthur, the
gardener, brought the chauffeur’s share of the property then
enlisted the help of a banker by the name of Kirk to expand the
business.
Mr Arthur first built himself a bungalow to
live in, which was demolished many years later, to build the
Leisure Club. He then began to expand the St John’s Hotel,
starting with building the Warwick Restaurant with the Warwick
Suite behind it. The next stage of expansion was the wing of
bedrooms at the main reception end of the hotel. This was
followed by a huge project in the early 1970’s, which incorporated
the Park Suite, the Gloucester Suite, and all the bedrooms
above.
In the late 1970’s Mr Arthur recruited Mr
Kirby to manage the financial side of the hotel and also to look
after the computer systems, which at that time was only a small
number. Also, at the same time, he recruited Mr Duffy to
manage the operations side to the business, focusing mainly on
Conferencing and Banqueting. Some time later these two men
brought into the business and became Directors alongside Mr
Arthur.
The St John’s Hotel became the largest
privately owned 3 star hotel in the country until early in 1984
when Swallow Hotels bought the business for approximately three and
a half million pounds. Mr Arthur retired and moved
locally.
On 16th June 1998, the St John’s Swallow Hotel
was confirmed as a 4 star property, a direct result of all the
improvements made to the hotel over the years. Then in
January 2000 the Whitbread Hotel Company acquired Swallow Hotels
and the hotel was re-branded to the Renaissance Solihull hotel on
15th August 2001. In May 2005 ownership transferred to
Marriott Hotels Ltd, a leading worldwide hospitality company and
the 651 Restaurant (Tempus) was shortened to add in the Warwick
Suite it, just as it used to be many years ago. In December 2007
Principal Hayley Hotels took ownership and the original name of St
Johns Hotel was acquired again!
The total number of bedrooms in the Hotel is
now 180 and our main conference suite, the Park Suite, can hold
functions of up to 700 delegates.