Visiting the Four Seasons Hotel Park Lane

Yes, London is seeing a veritable rash of luxury hotel openings and relaunches: we had the Savoy last autumn then the Four Seasons and the new W in Leicester Square (already up for sale). Later this year the much anticipated St Pancras Hotel will finally re-open. I already love the interior of the Searcy’s restaurant opposite the Champagne Bar on the platform: it makes me feel I’m half-way to Paris even before leaving London.

OK, back to the Four Seasons on Park Lane. It was almost an entire rebuild: a new floor has been added for the spa as well as a facade giving much more outside space to the “prow” of the building. The partnership of architects ReardonSmith  and interior designer PierreYves Rochon (PYR) has produced a very different result from  their previous work together on the Savoy, demonstrating how different sites and briefs dictate the response from a professional team.

I’ll concentrate on the public spaces as they are what most of us will see with the assured luxury and very high quality of finish apparent as soon as you walk through the door.

The stunner for me is the double-height mural by Michelle Letang. You can see some of it in the photo above. She often works with PYR and hasn’t yet seen this in the flesh so to speak but told me she’s pretty happy with her parkland scene. I’m glad she signed this piece , something she hardly ever does.

Red is the predominant colour here: the photos can’t reflect the richness and depth of the different tones which really hit you as you enter the all day dining area, Amaranto. This consists of a range of seating areas , all with a subtly different feel to them. Guests choose where they want to sit and then order what they like:  quite a revolutionary idea for a hotel.

The private dining room  is an intimate cocoon of padded walls; very sensual with a touch of decadence.