Kilham Hall is an oasis of luxury in the East Yorkshire countryside and has just beaten off bigger, and more famous, names to scoop a presitigious national award as the “most excellent” small hotel in the country. Ian Midgley went along to find out the secret of their success . . .

Joanne Long in the lounge of Kilham Hall

If small is beautiful, then Joanne Long must have one of the best looking boutique hotel in the country. Nestled teasingly off the beaten track in the attractive Wolds village of Kilham, near Driffield, Joanne’s three-room hotel, Kilham Hall Country House, makes a virtue of its intimate nature.

This is no vast, overpowering corporate hotel. Instead, during her many years working in the hospitality trade, Joanne has discovered her guests prefer the personal touch – tinged with a soupçon of luxury.

For many guests, staying at Kilham Hall is like visiting old friends, albeit ones who live in a sumptuous country pile who spoil you with award-winning home cooking and treat you like royalty.

Maybe that’s why she has a large cast of regulars who return every year for a spot of East Yorkshire pampering.

“This is the perfect size for us,” says Joanne, who bought Kilham Hall with her partner David Berry just under four years ago.

“I don’t think we’d want to run anything bigger,” says Joanne, who dreamed of running her own restaurant or country house hotel from an early age. She’s since gone on to achieve both.

North Yorkshire-born Joanne says she’d regularly wander past the tearoom near her village school and gaze in the window imagining what it would be like to own it.

The Georgian elegance of the drawing and dining rooms are contrasted with the modern, chic, boutique-style of this luxury bathroom

Kilham Hall may be considerably grander than the local café from her youth, but Joanne’s desire for a bijou, family-orientated business has remained with her. “It’s as much about the lifestyle for us as anything,” she says.

“With three bedrooms, we can keep the service really friendly and personal to the requirements of each individual guest.

“Everything we do here is geared towards providing that personal touch and I think that’s why we have guests who return year after year.”

It’s a philosophy that’s certainly paid dividends in recent months. First, Joanne and David were stunned to be awarded the prestigious title of “Most Excellent Small Hotel In UK & Ireland 2010” by the high-end publishing company Condé Nast Johansens, then they received a five-star gold award by tourism group Visit Britain.

“The Condé Nast award was a complete surprise to us,” admits David, as he relaxes by the roaring log fire in the Georgian drawing room with a cup of tea and one of Joanne’s home-made scones .

“We went to the glitzy awards ceremony in London as complete minnows to be honest. It was a real David versus Goliath contest and we thought one of the bigger hotels would walk away with the award.

“We knew we’d made the last three, out of a shortlist of about 20 other hotels, but when they announced we were the winners, we were just gobsmacked. I think we may have celebrated with a bottle of champagne or two.”

“We were immensely proud,” adds Joanne. “It’s great to win an award from within the industry because it shows you must be doing something right.

“Condé Nast is such a prestigious name that it will also help us to spread our reputation even further afield – which can only be good for us and for bringing people to the East Riding.”

What those guests will find when they arrive is an elegant mix of traditional comfort and funky contemporary design, bundled together to create a stately home from home.

Set within five-and-a-half acres of gardens and paddock, which flourish in the spring with pink and purple lupins and glorious copper beeches to complement the lush Wolds countryside surrounding it, Joanne and David have transformed Kilham Hall since moving in.

From the imposing entrance hall to the Georgian feel of the drawing and dining rooms, the main communal areas have been subtly revamped and restored to create a warming, traditional feel ideally suited to this former 19th century lodge.

But as you move beyond the drawing room to the bedroom suites, you are instantly transported from 19th century comfort to 21st century, funky, boutique-style chic.

Kilham Hall’s three guest suites offer what Joanne terms “pure escapism”, with hand-made Egyptian cotton sheets, glamorous oversized baths and unapologetic indulgence being the order of the day.

Here, in the Fairfax, Harewood and Sledmere suites, you’ll find the rooms decorated in rich aubergines and plums with complementary silk throws and inviting four poster beds, which wouldn’t look out of place in a swanky metropolitan hotel – never mind a quiet rural village on the fringes of Driffield.

The Sledmere suite, which Joanne describes as “decadent and daring”, offers an extra layer of privacy for guests and is approached via a wrought iron spiral staircase that leads up to the king-sized double bed and Juliet balcony overlooking the outdoor swimming pool.

Four-poster indulgence in one of the rooms

Aimed squarely at the upper end of the retreat market, the guests who pass through Kilham Hall are certainly used to the finer things in life.

Oasis’s manager stayed here when the rock giants made their final indoor appearance at Bridlington Spa last year while New York Times best-selling author, and former Yahoo! Internet executive, Tim Sanders, has also sampled Joanne’s award-winning full English.

Leaf through the green leather guest book and you’ll even find an appreciative scribble from Daily Telegraph cartoonist Matt, which will no doubt be worth a bob or two in years to come.

It’s Joanne’s understated sense of style that proved a winning formula at her previous guesthouse, Jasmine House, in the small market town of Middleham, in Wensleydale, deep in the Yorkshire Dales.

Joanne and David, a Huddersfield-raised businessman who ran a successful department store in Leyburn before semi-retiring, decided to up-sticks from their comfortable Dales lives and start again in Kilham, so they could jointly run the business together.

At first, they knew little about the East Riding but as the search for the “perfect” property extended further into the Wolds, the couple, who first met playing tennis and are now avid members of Rudston Tennis Club, realised just how much the area had to offer.

“It’s an over-used cliché but East Yorkshire really is a hidden gem,” says Joanne.

“A lot of my clients have followed me over from Jasmine House and many of them say they are completely surprised by the East Riding and Wolds.

“They say they’d never really considered coming to this part of the world before, but have been completely won over by the gentle countryside and what the area has to offer – and it has got a lot to offer.

“We’ve got historic houses such as Burton Agnes and Sledmere Halls on our doorstep and then there’s the breathtaking coastline and gorgeous places like Bempton Cliffs to visit. Plus York’s only a 45-minute drive away and, to us, Beverley’s like a mini-Harrogate. There’s certainly plenty to keep visitors busy.”

Admittedly though, some of Kilham Hall’s guests don’t intend on venturing out much once they’re through the front door.

To some, this is a rural retreat from the hurly burly of the modern world. A set or two on the tennis court or a quick dip in the pool is as energetic as they like to get.

For these visitors, the emphasis is on relaxation and maybe sampling Joanne’s gourmet hampers, crammed with locally sourced delicacies, which are delivered straight to their suite door.

The hall’s booked-out Valentine’s day packages were a testament to its growing reputation as a bolt-hole for old romantics. “A lot of the romance packages are booked by men,” laughs David. “Because we do everything for them. We take all the effort out of being romantic.

“All they have to do is turn up and enjoy themselves all weekend and we do the rest.”

For more information about Kilham Hall Country House and its retreat packages visit www.kilhamhall.co.uk or call Joanne or David on (01262) 420466.