Who's Going
Scarlet Johansson, Ryan Reynolds, Naomi Watts
Reason to Stay
Hip Clientele, Lobby Eatery, Soho-close Location
Hotel Type
Boutique Hotel
Five Firmdale Hotels are scattered throughout London with an emphasis on the city's media centers. Showier travelers and star-gazers tend to prefer Charlotte Street Hotel or Soho Hotel with their lively lobby lounges and celebrity clientele like Scarlet Johansson that call the hotels home while shooting in London or on West End stage. Firmdale owners Tim and Kit Kemp believe that "hotels should be living things, not stuffy institutions." Thus each hotel sports a different lobby scene that inevitably goes on to become a certified city hotspot.
Bright and airy, the signature spaces are defined by high ceilings, wooden floors with heavy patina and oversize industrial windows that overlook the surrounding neighborhood even if the views or weather are hardly optimal. The décor is contemporary English in a mix of modern and antique furnishing amongst whimsical craft objects like dressmaker forms found in all guest room and museum-quality art collection.
Sleepy-eyed guests arrive to an efficient reception located at a traditional plank-wood reservation desk that hits you mid-chest. A fresh-faced staff in slim vests and matching trousers navigates a straightforward check-in, as a bellman looks on ever so patiently, advising of each hotel's gym and lobby facilities. Old-fashioned cubbyholes contain laser-cut room keys with leather chains with embossed-gold numbers. With yours in hand, you pass through to a stainless-steel elevator well stuffed with you, your bellman and wheeled entourage of luggage.
The Room
The heaviest door you will ever open in a hotel, swings to reveal a crisp and bright room with wallpaper wainscoting, striped drapery, upholstered sofas and plaid chairs that you would never think really work but do. Oversize Loewe flatscreen TVs are opposite super-fluffy beds tucked 16-inches high with feather pillows and small bottle of aromatic sleeping fragrance that fills the room in a single jasmine-freesia spritz. Bedside tables include chunky modern radio, art-house books and personal note from housekeeping as well as the on-site manager. We’ve stayed in three of the five London hotels, and virtually every bathroom is identical. Either a marketing ploy or really good mind game, a familiar sight of speckled gray granite welcomes the foreign eye to an all-stone space with white basin sink surrounded by Miller Harris toiletries in a refreshing lemon verbena scent. Soaking tubs are complimented by recessed plasma screen TVs with surround sound and additional second chunky radio playing the local classic music channel anytime the housekeeping makes its morning or evening pass-through.
Preferred Room
Loft Bedroom
Special Features
Hip Clientele, Film Club, Lobby Lounge
Amenities
Lounge, Restaurant, Bar, Library, Theater
