The Hospital Club
Royal Opera House, 24 Endell St., London; thehospitalclub.com; 15 rooms from $340 (£180).
A musician and a billionaire break into an abandoned hospital. It’s not the start of some morbid, Illuminati joke, but part of the creation myth of London’s Hospital Club, a private members club, events company, restaurant, TV studio, gallery, theatre, concert venue and, now, 15-room hotel. The musician in question is Dave Stewart, one half of the great 1980s rock duo Eurythmics, and the billionaire is Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft Corp. The story goes that the two friends were having drinks in Covent Garden one evening on a patio overlooking the boarded-up former teaching hospital when they became intrigued, broke into the seven-storey, 19th-century building and decided that it would make a great club. Allen bought the building in 1996 and opened the club in 2004. The hotel rooms, however, just became available at the beginning of this year and offer guests access to all of the club’s considerable amenities.
LOCATION, LOCATION
Covent Garden, just on the edge of the West End, is one of London’s most vibrant neighbourhoods and is home to some of the best shopping and restaurants in the capital. One could easily spend a long weekend here without leaving the area’s borders, although with easy access to Tottenham Court Road, Holborn and Covent Garden tube stations, inexpensive transportation is an easy option.
DESIGN
The eclectic rooms designed by Russell Sage Studio have a kind of Burt Reynolds-Cosmopolitan-centrefold vibe about them: Leather accents, velvet furniture, curvaceous, wood-panelled headboards and lavish textiles on the walls and floor complete the international playboy feel. Sophisticated touches such as Ren toiletries, iPod docks, Roberts radios and huge plasma TVs ensure that the form has function. My suite, with its private balcony, claw-foot tub, cozy living room and huge bedroom, is among the hotel’s biggest, but there’s a range of sizes – including a couple of windowless “sleeper” rooms – and prices.
BEST AMENITY
It’s a toss up between the Swarovski-finished nipple tassels and the 18-karat-gold bum paddle. Both are available in the erotic mini-bar, but priced at more than $200 (£125 and £149, respectively) they are probably best admired rather than employed. The price of the room also includes a visit each evening from the hotel’s rolling cocktail trolley, helmed by a skilled bartender who can shake up a mean boulevardier, or whatever you crave, in addition to serving a selection of complimentary premixed cocktails.
WHOM YOU’LL MEET
Possibly a famous musician or a tech billionaire, maybe a fashion buyer or CTO. The crowd is hip and knowing, but too sophisticated, and maybe too moneyed, to simply be clichéd hipsters.
IF I COULD CHANGE ONE THING
I could have done without listening to the chef loudly berate a supplier – in language that would make Gordon Ramsay blush – while trying to eat my poached eggs one morning at breakfast. The extended outburst may help to explain why it took so long for the food to come. Too bad, because once it arrived, the food was excellent.
EAT IN OR EAT OUT?
Covent Garden is too spoiled for great restaurants not to get out and explore. The bacon naan roll at Dishoom is one of London’s great breakfasts. The newly opened American import, Shake Shack, is generating the kind of endless queues that it’s notorious for and J Sheekey’s Oyster Bar is a classic of the genre.
The writer was a guest of the hotel.