Our Story

Foresters Hall was created by Peter Sussman and Sara Curran as a personal interpretation of what modern hospitality can be when it is guided by empathy, restraint, and intention.

The brand was brought to life in Cowes on the Isle of Wight through a fourteen room boutique hotel designed as a refined home away from home. From the outset, the aim was never to impress through scale or spectacle, but to create a place that felt instinctively welcoming and deeply considered.

During their stewardship, Foresters Hall Cowes received One MICHELIN Key in the MICHELIN Key inaugural year, achieved five star status from the AA, and was recognised as both a Mr and Mrs Smith Hotel and a Tablet Hotel. These accolades reflected not only design quality, but a consistency of experience shaped by care, detail, and point of view.

Shaped by their backgrounds in film and television storytelling, Peter and Sara approached hospitality as a narrative rather than a checklist. Every moment was considered, from the personal kerbside welcome on arrival to the smallest details within each room. Service was intuitive and human, never rehearsed or formulaic.

At the heart of Foresters Hall is a belief that luxury should be quiet, personal, and emotionally resonant. Spaces were designed to feel calm and confident. Craftsmanship and authenticity guided every decision. Guests were invited to relax, settle in, and feel genuinely at ease from arrival through to farewell.

Foresters Hall Cowes was sold in January 2026 to an Italian yachtsman for private use. While the building has entered a new chapter, the philosophy behind Foresters Hall continues.

Peter and Sara now apply their approach in identifying, shaping, and advising boutique hotel and hospitality projects that share these values. Projects where character matters, stories resonate, and hospitality feels instinctive rather than imposed.

A man in a black suit is sitting on a bed, and a woman in a black and white dress with pearl details is standing beside a nightstand in a room with blue and white floral wallpaper. There is a lamp and a vintage telephone on the nightstand.

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Living room with two dark blue striped armchairs with light gray pillows, a wood side table with books and sunglasses, and a framed black and white portrait of a man on the dark blue wall.

The Art at FH

Sara and Peter have a very international art collection. More than two dozen pieces acquired over the years in various places including in particular, London, Dublin, Toronto, New York and Los Angeles. From paintings and sculptures by English, Scottish and Irish artists such as Amanda Watt, Kirsty Wither, Mick Wilkins, James Harrigan, Mick Wilkins and Cliona Doyle, to North American artists and photographers such as Alex Katz, Keith Haring, Jim Dine, Lena Moross, Yousef Karsh, Christopher Wahl and Annie Leibovitz, the growing collection also includes more than a half-dozen serpentine and soapstone sculptures by celebrated Native Canadian (Nunavut) artists. At Foresters Hall Cowes, Sara and Peter commissioned a unique 3D Mural on the back wall of the Garden Suites facing the hotel swimming pool by world-renowned artist ‘3D Joe and Max’.