Wolverhampton developer and land owner celebrates 125 years
The Birmingham property company behind the first rooftop car park in Britain in Wolverhampton and some of the first steel-framed concrete shop premises in the city is celebrating 125 years in business.
Hortons’ Estate in Latham House, Paradise Street was incorporated on June 21,1892 and still remains in the control of the family with more than 100 shareholders spanning seven generations and living all around the world.
Founder Isaac Horton began the real estate empire during the Victorian property boom, using income from his family provisions, butchery and cheese factoring businesses.
Foreseeing the impact the railways would have on visitors to Birmingham, he built the Grand and Midland –now Macdonald Burlington – hotels, close to the city’s stations.
The hotels were supplemented with a number of leasehold and freehold properties in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, many of which remain within the portfolio today and have helped shaped the landscape in both cities.
Hortons was involved in major development in Wolverhampton in the mid-1920s.
The rooftop car park in Wolverhampton was created as part of a re-development of Victoria Street, School Street and Salop Street.
Today the family-owned property company has a portfolio of retail, hotel, office and industrial properties and land across the Midlands, valued at more than £250 million.
It still owns many shops in Wolverhampton in Dudley Street and Queen Street.
The portfolio includes a number of Isaac’s original buildings including The Grand and Burlington blocks in Birmingham, 128 New Street - home to the newly opened Apple store - with more recent additions including Gateway Retail Park, Cannock, and Old Dalby Trading Estate in Melton Mowbray.
Peter Horton, chairman of Hortons’ Estate. said: “Established in the Victorian property boom, Hortons’ Estate survived the Great Depression and two world wars to build a diverse and profitable portfolio of Midlands’ properties.
“The Grand in Birmingham was one of our earliest developments and it’s particularly fitting that within weeks of our 125th anniversary we have been able to announce its re-opening in 2019.”
The Grade II* listed Grand on Colmore Row will have 180bedrooms and Hortons’ Estate has signed a conditional partnership agreement with the Principal Hotel Company, which owns and operates 39 hotels across the UK.
It was originally developed by the Horton family between 1879 and 1895 and contained shops, offices and the Grand Hotel, which the family ran until 1969. The hotel was subsequently managed by a number of operators until it closed in 2002.
Since 2009 Hortons’ Estate has invested £25m in the restoration of the building resulting in the creation of ten new shops and 11,000 sq ft of offices fronting Colmore Row, together with significant re-modelling of the interior of the former hotel.
