Imagine if the Photographers' Gallery in London added a luxury hotel upstairs – well, here at the Front Rooms B&B you have that in miniature. The owners of the diminutive yet excellent Front View art photography gallery wanted to boost numbers, so last year hit upon the clever idea of adding a B&B.
The gallery is in the front room of their own large terraced-villa home, but luckily they had enough rooms to give over a few more to a business venture. Now three bright little bedrooms are available to guests, one en suite, and two designed to be rented together with a shared bathroom. The gallery space doubles up as the lounge/breakfast room, with two wide white leather sofas facing each other across a low trestle table, narrow shelves lined with fashion and photography books, and, of course, stunning photography up on the walls (and up for sale).
What a relief it's so nice, thought my boyfriend and I when we arrived, via a 10-minute walk from the train station through suburban bungalows guarded by legions of colourful gnomes, to this unlikely location on a main road with a bowling alley at the bottom.
But despite the lack of a beach view in a resort awash with seaside accommodation, this place pulls off the beach-hut-with-style vibe. Owners Tom Sutherland and Julie Thorne (a fashion art director) who live here with their daughter have done the whole place in varying shades of white, sometimes with the meekest tinge of cloudy blue, from the weathered floorboards to the walls, the radiators to the Victorian cast iron bed frames, the Egyptian cotton bed linen and driftwood mirrors. The attention to detail in the hip little art gallery extends flawlessly to the rooms, with a flatscreen iMac for watching the stack of (well chosen) DVDs, a mini fridge with free fizzy water, chocolate and a little bottle of wine.
Bringing art and accommodation together is a smart move, especially in this part of the world, with the Kent coast gaining credibility as a chichi art destination, thanks to Margate's forthcoming Turner Contemporary gallery, due to open next year, and stella architecture projects such as Deal's pier cafe.
After breakfast, we borrowed the B&B's bikes to cycle along the coast to Margate, to the Mad Hatter's Tearoom for lunch, a vintage funfair, and to hear a bizarrely health-conscious rap performed on the beach ("Don't gimme no swine flu, I don't wanna die, dude!"). We ate wonderful seafood and fish back in Whitstable – at Samphire (samphirerestaurant.co.uk), and in Seasalter, at the duly renowned Sportsman (thesportsmanseasalter.co.uk), which we had to hitchhike to (thank you, Mr jolly, bare-chested tattooed bloke) so distracted were we on our walk there by paddles in the sea and the Neptune's Tavern. Returning to the cool white space of the adorable B&B was the perfect counterpoint to all that seaside exploration.
