This beautiful and elegant Victorian Villa was not built from plan but commissioned and architecturally designed as a family home, then used as a Hotel in Torquay.
The house was completed in 1857 and the first occupants took up residency on December 27th. We believe it to have been built by John Tapley Harvey and William Harvey who built Meadfoot Crescent, which was commissioned in 1846. The Crescent is based on the Regency ideals of London and Brighton it later became Hesketh Crescent, after the birth of the first son to Maria Palk, daughter of Lord and Lady Hesketh and wife of Lawrence Palk.
Robert Palk bought much of this part of Torquay on his return from India, but it was his son, Lawrence who inherited the estates who became the town's first speculative developer. He started selling plots on 99 year leases to the wealthy. So affluent were these new owners that not one building was erected without its own stables and coach house.
The stables and coach house at Key West were redeveloped in the 1960’s to form two apartments. These were later converted and linked to the villa and now form the self catering apartments.
