To sleep ... perchance to dream: London's luxury rooms

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10 April 2012

What more luxurious way to unwind than a soak in the private plunge pool on your hotel room balcony? But this is not Barbados or Dubai. The view is not palm-fringed beach or desert, it is grey rooftops to Trafalgar Square.

The plunge pool is in the Lady Hamilton suite - you are at the same level as her lover Nelson's head - at the soon to be opened Corinthia Hotel on Northumberland Avenue. This hulking ocean liner of a building is a former Ministry of Defence office block being rapidly transformed into a palace of five-star opulence at a cost of £300 million.

The Corinthia is one of five super luxury hotels coming to London between next week and early May. It is the most concentrated sequence of openings at the top end of the hotel hierarchy that anyone in the industry can remember. And the most expensive. If the modernisation of the Savoy, which reopened last October, is included, more than £1 billion has been spent over the past couple of years.

The new flurry of openings kicks off on Monday when the Four Seasons on Park Lane welcomes guests again after a two-year absence. Although not technically a new hotel, the renovation has been so fundamental - at one stage only the outside walls were still standing - that to all intents and purposes the old Four Seasons no longer exists.

It will open quietly with only around 40 rooms occupied on the first night to allow the new staff, kitchens and systems to bed down. But the Four Seasons' loyal followers - the wealthy seem to stick to their favourite hotel in the same way that football fans follow their club - will soon be back in numbers. Within 10 minutes of the date of the royal wedding being announced one American regular was on the line to book for April 29.

Hard on its heels comes the W hotel in Leicester Square on February 14; the Waldorf Astoria in Syon Park towards the end of February; then the Corinthia in Whitehall on April 2 and the Renaissance at St Pancras station in early May.
Two are conversions of grand historic buildings, one a renovation of an existing hotel, another an achingly trendy West End lifestyle location and the fifth a new "country house" style hotel built from scratch in a London park.

They are very different but will set new standards of luxury. The emphasis is on informality and relaxation and they will cement London's reputation as the five-star capital of the world.

At the Four Seasons the traditional English floral fabrics of the old hotel have gone, replaced by understated international sophistication, overseen by Parisian interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon, who also worked on the Savoy and the George V in Paris.

At all the new hotels, hues are muted, often variations of themes of beige or brown with only occasional blocks of stronger colour.

The old concept of meal sittings in designated rooms has also been junked. Any meal - from breakfast to midnight feast - can be taken in any public room, from bar to lounge.

Spas, once the preserve of converted stately homes or golf club resorts, are now de rigueur even in the heart of the city - and bigger than ever.

The Corinthia's huge spa is spread over four floors with 17 private treatment rooms. There is a sauna enclosed in a glass "amphitheatre" as well as an ice shower. The celebrity colourist and stylist Daniel Galvin, whose clients have included Princess Diana, Madonna and Twiggy, will have a salon.

At the Four Seasons the spa is perched on the roof with floor-to-ceiling windows giving views across Hyde Park to such London landmarks as Big Ben and the Eye, even in the sauna. There will be two heat treatment "vitality pools" - one for men and one for women - treated by ozone rather than chlorine.

Out at Syon Park, the new Waldorf Astoria is even offering what it calls "bath masters" if you find running your own bath too onerous. They will fill it and prepare it with luxury bath bombs, then fix a martini for when you get out.

Bathrooms are becoming mini-spas in their own right. At the W on Leicester Square there is even a Spa Suite with its own steam room and treatment bed.

TVs in bathrooms or even in showers and underfloor heating are standard. Marble is everywhere. At the Corinthia, it comes from the same Carrara quarry in northern Italy used for Michelangelo's David and the Marble Arch.
Technology is also key. Wifi and internet access are now indispensible - and free. But many business guests, particularly those from financial services, are banned from using wifi for security reasons, so discreet communications hubs include cable internet connections.

In addition, sockets for UK, European and US plugs and USB cables are standard as well as HDMI connections so that lap-tops can be run through the room's large wall mounted high-definition TV.

The Corinthia's general manager Matthew Dixon is expecting so many celebrity guests from the worlds of film and TV that high-definition cabling is laid under the floors of guest rooms, effectively turning them into standby studios. If Ben Stiller or Natalie Portman is staying and asked to do an interview, it can be broadcast live out of the hotel without the need to lay intrusive cables along corridors. The W, in the heart of London's premiere district, will have its own 38-seater in-house cinema.

Of all the new hotels, the most spectacular setting will be the St Pancras Renaissance, where the long-neglected Victorian Gothic masterpiece that was once the Midland Grand Hotel is finally being brought back to life. Two Michelin-starred chef Marcus Wareing is opening a new restaurant in the entrance hall and coffee room of the 1873 building.

The station's old wood-panelled ticket office will become the booking office bar, with a 29 metre-long, white marble-topped counter.

But as the world economy struggles to pick itself up from the financial crisis and the recession, is there room in London for so many spectacular hotels?

Yes, according to Russell Ketts, managing director of the HVS International consultancy. "There is a lot of historic architecture in London and there is a feeling quite rightly that you cannot just build anything you want. These projects have all been through very lengthy planning processes and are now opening ahead of two fantastic marketing opportunities over the next 18 months, the royal wedding and the Olympics."

The openings follow one of the most successful years in the history of London's hotel industry when its top-end hotels were 82.2 per cent full on average, an occupancy rate you would expect only at the peak of the boom years. Virtually every upmarket hotel bed in London was filled on the equivalent of six nights out of seven. In July, occupancy peaked at 93.4 per cent.

It is an astonishing performance, putting London ahead of almost every other major city in the world, including even the great metropolises of China.

Good money was being made, too. Revenue per hotel room was up 11.6 per cent at £127. The returns have encouraged operators to commit vast sums to London, the ultimate global city no serious hotelier can ignore.

Over the next couple of years there will be further five-star hotels in The Shard, in the former Café Royal building in Regent Street, on the Strand and in Knightsbridge. London's five-star gold rush is far from over.

GET A ROOM
Four Seasons
Location: Park Lane
Opening: January 31
Cost: £125 million
Rooms: 192, including 45 suites
Rate: £468-£10,000
USP: Rooftop spa on 10th floor, thought to be the only one of its kind in London

W
Location: Leicester Square (former Swiss Centre building)
Opening: 14 February
Cost: £200 million
Rooms: 192, including 9 suites
Rates: £269 to £5,000
USP: Private cinema, rotating sofa in penthouse suite and permanent art installation on outside of building

London Syon Park
Location: Syon Park, Isleworth
Opening: Late February
Cost: £60 million
Rooms: 137 bedrooms including 11 suites
Rate: £259-£2,000
USP: Lobby butterfly house, laser pigeon shooting, 40-acre private garden

Corinthia
Location: Whitehall
Opening: April 2
Cost: £300 million
Rooms: 294, including 40 suites
Rate: £400-£15,000
USP: Private lifts to the five biggest suites, balcony plunge pool, Harrods shop

St Pancras Renaissance
Location: King's Cross
Opening: 5 May
Cost: £200 million
Rooms: 245, including 38 suites
Rate: £300-£10,000
USP: Staying in one of the world's architectural masterpieces, gentlemen's grooming shop and barber

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