If you want a hotel with history, then you can't put a price on fun
Hotels risk losing their sparkle if they price out the very people who give them their place-to-be-seen allure.
Gazing across the River Thames from the balcony of The Savoy Hotel's Terrace Suite recently, I was reminded that Claude Monet checked in here for extended stays three times between 1898 and 1901 to paint those iconic fog-shrouded scenes of Waterloo Bridge from the very same vantage point.
Elsewhere, the hotel’s new collection of freshly refurbished Art Deco rooms leans on its history as a venue once synonymous with the most progressive designers of the time. ‘It’s not about recreating the past,’ says general manager Frank Arnold, ‘but about interpreting its spirit for the future.’
'The local cabbies got free coffee, breakfast and late-night burgers on certain dates this summer'
As recently as the early 2000s tales of hardscrabble artists, writers and designers seeking refuge in hotels, clubs and restaurants would abound. Indeed, much of The Groucho Club’s famed art collection is made up of works offered up by skint YBAs unable to pay their tab. But with nights in Savoy suites nudging £10,000 it’s fair to say you won't find any jobbing artists seeking board and inspiration there today.
Who and where?
- Salvador Dalí made Le Meurice (above) his permanent Paris base for roughly 30 years, and spent 40 winters living in Room 1610 at The St. Regis in New York. He and his wife, Gala, were known for making theatrical entrances accompanied by an entourage and pets
- Pablo Picasso spent three months at Hotel de Russie in Rome while collaborating on a ballet with Jean Cocteau. They stayed in adjoining rooms and would lean out of the windows in order to pluck fresh oranges from the hotel's garden's trees
- Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are all inextricably linked with Hotel Chelsea in New York. Warhol filmed part of his Chelsea Girls film there and Smith lived in the building during her early career
- Henri Matisse, Picasso (he got around) and Joan Miró exchanged original works for rooms at La Colombe d'Or in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Quite a lot of them are still on display
- F. Scott Fitzgerald frequented Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc which heavily inspired the fictional Hôtel des Étrangers in his 1934 novel Tender Is the Night. Marc Chagall based himself at the hotel every summer for a decade; Picasso — of course, who else? — famously illustrated the Eden-Roc restaurant menu in 1955
- London's Columbia hotel is famed for its chaotic rock 'n' roll history. It's hosted touring musicians such as Iggy Pop and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, accommodated Amy Winehouse stayed and served Oasis with a lifetime ban. In 1994, during a late-night drinking session, the band and its entourage chucked furniture out of the windows and crushed the hotel manager's parked Mercedes
It’s hardly a novel point to make that London hotel prices have become increasingly steep as operational costs have risen (what hasn’t?), but if the ever-expanding luxury market here remains fixated on chasing that most ungainly of acronyms, the UHNWI (ultra-high-net-worth individual), what happens to the creatives, the bohemians, the free-spirited flâneurs that, in lieu of spending power, have always given such places their place-to-be-seen allure?
It’s a hot topic during the soft-launch buzz of Savoy’s new north bank neighbour, St Clement, the brainchild of Soho House founder Nick Jones. Given its prime panoramic position and immediate star power (The Rolling Stones launched their new album here) they could really have charged what they like. ‘But we don't want to just take anyone,’ explained Jones on a recent showaround. ‘We want people who are kind, not flashy, who really respect what we're trying to do and so we really respect them.’
And so regular guests, locals and ‘friends’ will receive a preferential £600-a-night rate and a welcome into its semi-private bar, Bobbi’s. Plus the local cabbies got free coffee, breakfast and late-night burgers on certain dates this summer. Could it be taken as something of a vibe shift? A timely reminder that the best hotels have never belonged exclusively to their guests, but to their neighbourhoods too?
Oliver Milne-Watson hopes so: ‘The great London hotels earned their reputations because they weren't just buildings, they were meeting places.’ Milne-Watson is the general manager of The Newman which opened in Fitzrovia at the start of the year. Its storied but often overlooked central London neighbourhood has been at the heart of the hotel and portraits of local characters line its walls. ‘It has a remarkable creative history — we wanted The Newman to reflect that spirit rather than simply borrow its aesthetic. A neighbourhood hotel has to contribute to the life of its area, not just benefit from its postcode,’ says Milne-Watson.
Its Neighbourhood Club is one such initiative that gives local members discounts at the hotel restaurant, bar, and spa and at a growing network of independent businesses with all profits from membership donated to Fitzrovian charities. ‘The challenge for the industry is finding ways to maintain that openness while still running a sustainable business. But luxury and accessibility don't have to be opposites.’
