The most expensive hotel in London

Inside London's flamboyant Lanesborough hotel

The most expensive hotel in London, The Lanesborough is remarkably extravagant but does it provide bang for your buck?

BY FIONA DUNCAN AUGUST 07, 2015 12:25

After a 19-month closure and a top-to-toe refurbishment costing a reputed £80 million, the Lanesborough Hotel, overlooking Hyde Park Corner, has reopened.

Forget the shock of the new. The just-completed interiors deliver the shock of the old: an interior that displays astonishing craftsmanship but feels remarkably formal and fussy, just when the trend for hotels is to kick back, pare down, chill.

The designer was Alberto Pinto, well known for his work on private houses and yachts, though this was his first hotel (he died in 2012 and his company carried out his designs for The Lanesborough). His brief from the hotel’s long-standing general manager Geoffrey Gelardi and its owners, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, was to retain the Regency theme of the hotel, but to lighten. This he certainly achieved (the old Lanesborough was notably dark) but at the same time has added lashings of superbly crafted but fussy ornamentation and old-fashioned furniture that are easy to admire but make it hard to relax. The formerly plain ceilings, in particular, are now gilded, stuccoed and painted as if this were a royal palace.

But it’s not a palace: it’s the former St George’s Hospital, purpose-built in 1827 by William Wilkins (architect of the National Gallery) in Greek Regency style. It replaced a mansion built in 1719, and in those days surrounded by open countryside, by 2nd Viscount Lanesborough. After his death, the house became, from 1733 until it was rebuilt in 1827, St George’s.

The hospital closed in 1980, relocating to Tooting. In 1991 the empty building was transformed into the Lanesborough Hotel, at a then staggering cost of £1 million per room (there are 93). For the current refurbishment there have been only minor changes in layout. Instead, the money has been spent on decoration (whose intricacy will surely prove a housekeeping nightmare) and the latest technology (including remote door keys and Sony tablets in every room for lighting, curtain controls, room service and information).

Two spaces in the hotel remain genuinely relaxing: the mellow, intimate and ever popular Library Bar for superb cocktails, and the outdoor Garden Room for cigars. But while you can marvel at the lavish new ceiling, Wilkinson chandeliers, trompe-l’oeil marbling, 19th-century paintings, gold leaf, gilding and authentic paintwork in the Withdrawing Room (what’s with the ‘With’?) it’s hard to relax there. The same goes for the restaurant, Celèste: though a stunning room, with its powder-blue walls and glass roof, it’s too formal and full of Regency overkill for the all-day dining it offers. Nothing wrong with the food though, courtesy of talented Florian Favario, protégée of Eric Frechon, whose Epicure restaurant in Le Bristol hotel is one of the hot spots of Paris.

And nothing wrong with the service. Geoffrey Gelardi has always ensured the highest standards at The Lanesborough (he was the first to introduce butlers and they are available for all rooms here, not just suites) and so does the Oetker Collection, the German family-owned company that now manages the hotel. They share the same philosophy: guests come first. The Lanesborough is the latest in a small but impressive group of hotels owned or managed by Oetker, including Le Bristol and the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc at Antibes.

The Lanesborough remains a haven of luxury, but with its fussy, old-fashioned bedrooms and surprisingly small (but exquisitely marbled) bathrooms, even in the lavish £26,000 per night Royal Suite, many people may feel that although it’s the most expensive hotel in London, it doesn’t offer the right bang for their modern-day buck.

Doubles from £720 per night; breakfast from £28 per person.

THE LANESBOROUGH
Hyde Park Corner
London
SW1X 7TA
020 7259 5599
lanesborough.com