There are perhaps four hundred properties in the world we would send a member to without a caveat. The number is small for unromantic reasons, and it is worth setting them out.
The first filter is staff tenure. A house where the head of service has been in post nine years behaves differently from one where the average is eleven months, and no amount of capital expenditure closes that gap. We ask for the number before we ask for the rate.
The second is whether the building sits in its place or on it. Materials from within a hundred kilometres, a roofline that does not announce itself from the water, and a footprint that the local planning authority did not have to be persuaded about. Quiet architecture correlates almost perfectly with quiet guests.
The third is the relationship with the nearest community. We ask who owns the land, who is employed and at what level, and whether anyone from the village has ever eaten in the dining room. The answers are usually instructive.
The fourth is what happens when something goes wrong at two in the morning. We test this, occasionally rudely, before a property enters the register.
Members do not see the register as a list. They see two or three suggestions from a counsel who has read their file, in the season those places are actually at their best.