Leisure company The Apartment Group has unveiled a luxury hotel, country pub and boho wedding venue in County Durham.
The Newcastle firm, which owns a strong of bars, restaurants and hotels across the region, has transformed the former Jersey Farm Country Hotel near Barnard Castle into a venue called Runa. The company snapped up the hotel before the pandemic, at the same as it bought a nearby hotel in Spennymoor.
But its renovation plans had to be put on hold during the pandemic lockdowns, when it instead focussed investment on its Newcastle city centre venues. The Apartment Group, which owns bars ChaChaBuchi, The Holy Hobo and Zarabanda, is now poised to open Runa – which takes its name from the first two letters of ‘rural’ and ‘nature’ – following significant investment overseen by chief executive Debrah Dhugga, who previously managed luxury hotels in London and Dubai.
