The seemingly unstoppable rise of member’s clubs in London is perhaps a reflection of the British character. As the old phrase goes, the inevitable result of three men being marooned on a desert island together is that two of them will form a club and decline the third permission to join. Increasingly these clubs also ape their forebears on St.James’s Street by having bedrooms, which in those august palaces were originally so that a gentleman coming up from the country for the weekend would not necessarily have to open up his entire London home for the occasion but could stay at his club instead.
More recently clubs have done so for symbiotic reasons: few people can afford a pied a terre in London with property prices what they are – I’m lucky with my own London bolt hole in Soho having purchased it before madness entered the market – and an extra source of revenue for clubs which can utilize often unprepossessing space in lofts.
A good example of this in the City of London is the Ned, that vast temple to the financial spending power of City workers, which I suspect only makes any economic sense at all because it has lots of bedrooms. But it is also not what I would call a club. A club is a place where the members know each other and there is a common bond. A place where you can go to the bar and see who you bump into. Which is how I think of the Groucho, Quo Vadis and my old club on St.James’s Street. As fun as the Ned can be its hardly somewhere you would go on your own.
Yet in a reversal of expectations, Threadeedles Hotel, right in the heart of the City of London felt to me not like another hotel, but like a club. It was not just in the archirtecture, although as the photographs show this 5-star hotel was created from a Victorian bank headquarters. As you arrive the central dome with it’s stunning stained glass windows lifts up your eyes and creates the calm that seemingly only space can. It is a beautiful central lobby which opens to the bar and Caviar House by Prunier restaurant to the right.
Along the wall behind the restaurant tables is a bar which is rather wonderfully crafted from the old bank teller’s counter and is but one of the many thoughtful ways in which the heritage of the building has been incorporated into its new role as an hotel. However, the excellent and properly dry martini I was served was probably not made available to the bank’s original customers although who knows what the directors would have been served in their boardroom upstairs.
Apropos of which I was given an excellent room on the first floor which had originally been an office for one of the bank’s directors, and which retained the wainscotting and other features that had been put in place during an art deco Edwardian restoration. The attention to detail in doing so and not just retaining the structural fabric is impressive and no less than the heritage deserves, but such care (and expense) is a rarity in hotels.
Notwithstanding the heritage, the room had everything you would want from a five star hotel room, from a luxurious bed to a well lit desk, nespresso machine and a calming bathroom – with a huge bath to boot. It was also very quiet and peaceful, looking out over the inner courtyard it provided an exterior view of the glass dome that reminded me of the dome view from the upper floors of Galaries Lafayette in Paris.
Breakfast in the morning was a proper affair, with a well cooked full English breakfast ordered a la carte and the buffet restricted to patisserie, fruit, cereals and juices, which is as it should be. And I noticed at breakfast that the waitresses seemed to know the names of most of the guests and were on very good terms with them. This had all been evident last night -from the doorman, who they must keep at all costs his helpful welcome and reserved politeness is a model for the role – to the bar staff, the receptionists and genuinely everyone else I came across. And I looked around at the deep, comfortable art deco armchairs in the lobby and thought they are just like ones I know in an old club in Mayfair.
In short, everything about Threadneedles struck me as being like a club, and a very privileged one to boot. If the Ned is for the thrusting hordes and those climbing the ladder of whatever law firm, bank or accountancy practice they work at, Threadneedles is a club for those at the top. It is for the Chairman and the senior directors, not the sub group MD. It is the calm of having money in the bank rather than the relentless desire to make some. It is very city, it is very, very impressive and despite it being technically an hotel I shall always think of it as a club, and shall mention to those friends of mine who really have made it that there is a place in the City where they really should stay.
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