Travel & Leisure | June 2000

SPECIAL HOTELS ISSUE

As recently as 10 years ago, new hotels in London were little more than jumped-up bed-and-breakfasts. Travelers counted themselves cosseted if they bagged a power shower and a king-size bed. Fast-forward to the turn of the century. When no one was looking, London became the hotel capital of Europe-make that the world. Consider the cast. Leading roles go to design doyen Terence Conran, to neo-traditionalist British tastemaker Kit Kemp, and to Philippe Starck and , the Franco-American team for whom a good gag is as important as a good pillow. They say there's no place like home. But these days, there's no place like a London hotel.

is no lily livered hotelier. Last September he opened the St. Martins Lane hotel in Covent Garden. This April, having paused just long enough to check his spreadsheets, he struck again with the Sanderson, a sanctuary cum urban spa in Soho.

"It's the most radical, sophisticated, high finish hotel Philippe and I have ever done," says Schrager, referring to visual joke king Philippe Starck, the French designer with whom he has scored big hits in New York (the Royalton), Miami Beach (the Delano), and Los Angeles (the Mondrian). "The envelope is minimalist, but the contents are baroque, which gives rise to a certain tension." The Sanderson's unlikely envelope is the former corporate headquarters and showroom of Sanderson fabrics and wall coverings. Though many find the grid faÁade (in aluminum and squares of clear and blue green glass) too dreary for words, the structure is considered a model of 1960's British office architecture. Among England's protected buildings, it has a starred Grade II listing (Buckingham Palace is Grade I). As a result, Schrager was forbidden to remove the letters spelling out SANDERSON above the front door, leaving him no choice but to name the hotel after the original, none too glamorous occupants. And he lost the battle for four inch maple floor planks in the public spaces because two inch planks were in place when the building sold wallpaper.

Starck plays a new and provocative game of transparency in the 150 guestrooms, suites, lofts, and penthouse apartments, the last served by private elevators. The only dividing walls in these ironic dreamscapes are glass; all are see through except the acid etched partitions shared by the shower and toilet stalls. The closet is a translucent box that bears testimony to every wrinkling moment your clothes sustained getting here. Mercifully, when you can't stand to look at them a second longer, a filmy curtain can be pulled across the closet's front. Another curtain whips before the bathroom sink to keep your companion in bed from watching you floss. Now that's privacy.

But what a bed-an Italian silver leaf sleigh bed attended by spidery polished stainless steel night tables and draped with a fringed Pashmina shawl the color of dried lemon verbena ("But pashmina's so over," you can hear the fashion rats crying). Cartoonish copies of Empire chairs have arms ending in swan heads, and one of Victor Hugo's love letters was blown up 15 times to provide the scribbly pattern for the handloomed rugs. A pair of Starck hand weights look like cow femurs.

The same if it's not broken don't fix it philosophy that put Schrager back with Starck for the Sanderson also has him reprising collaborations with his wife, Rita-for a branch of Agua, the holistic spa she launched at the Delano-as well as with video installation artist Jean Baptiste Mondino, art director Fabien Baron (who's almost as famous as his boss), and landscape designer Madison Cox. But no news is bigger than the hotel's nabbing of Alain Ducasse to open a branch of his Paris restaurant Spoon.

The Sanderson has a subtly older, richer vibe than Schrager's other properties. What explains this? "I'm a little older," he smiles. "And a little richer."

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