Detailed Review
A lavish "Urban Spa" in the heart of London’s West End, Sanderson offers a retreat from the bustle of the city into a world of fantasy and wellbeing. The landmarked 50s building has been transformed by Philippe Starck into a surreal Cocteau-like dreamworld with a lushly landscaped interior courtyard garden, world-class gourmet restaurant by Alain Ducasse, and the extensive facilities of the renowned Agua Bathhouse. Sanderson epitomizes a “new luxury” that is smart, pared down, and tempered with a healthy dose of wit and irony – in short, a hotel with modern sex appeal.
Press Quotes
"The hotel itself is like fantasia for grown-ups - a fabulously modern testament to floaty white wondrousness."Telegraph 08
"On the outside an ugly Fifties office block, inside it's a witty, modern, sexy dreamscape themed "urban-spa" dotted with eclectic pieces such as the red "lips" sofa." The Independent 05
Independent Reviews
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“A dramatic designer production, the second property in London from duo Schrager and Starck is a destination in its own right.”
The Sanderson
By Angela Moore
The Sanderson is brought to you by Ian Schrager in association with Philippe Starck, their second hotel in London (the first is St Martin’s Lane). It’s in an old wallpaper factory to the north of Oxford Street, a listed building of admirable ugliness, its full-length windows intriguingly shrouded by white drapes.
Walk in, though, and you’re in a different world: a dramatic lobby with blonde wooden floors stretches away in front of you. The video installations at the reception desk, the clear Perspex cup-seat suspended from the ceiling, the luscious red Salvador Dali lips, what appears to be a big orange Perspex guitar case: you could only be in a Schrager/Starck hotel. Suddenly, all other ‘design hotels’ seem pale imitations.
To the left is the famous Long Bar, fashioned from white onyx, lit from within by a cool white glow and from without by the glittering, trendy types that flock here. Spoon, a proper Alain Ducasse restaurant, is beyond that. Both open onto a central garden courtyard. The Purple Bar, tiny, cave-like and candlelit, is open only to residents and the uber-cool. The spa looks like the waiting room for heaven with white drapes cascading down from a double-height ceiling and silent, smiling, white-clothed acolytes.
The hotel was designed six years ago and already has the air of a retro art installation, which only serves to make it even more fabulously funky. Of course, one man’s 35-foot, silver-leafed, powder-blue silk chaise longue is another man’s bally silly chair. If you’re prone to be irritated by all this or if you’re a function-over-form person, you’re better off elsewhere.
There continue to be mutterings about bad service levels at this hotel – which, to be fair, are generally balanced by rave reviews. The whole Schrager chain is making an effort to ramp up service levels, but there are some basic courtesies that are neglected on occasion; it probably depends who you get. Verdict? For a hip weekend on the town, fantastic; for a five-star experience, somewhere else.
The rooms
Oooh! Dramatic, subversive, white. There are no inner walls; bathrooms are sectioned off in glass boxes draped in a cascade of semi-transparent curtain – at the touch of a button another curtain whooshes across for privacy. Silver-leaf sleigh beds appear to float in midair above a scribbled woollen rug. Lights swoop down from the ceilings. A soothing painting is positioned on the ceiling above the bed.
Doubles and deluxe doubles are comfortable and spacious; the higher room categories are really generous with space. Most bathrooms just have very a slick walk-in shower, though some have cool and curvy freestanding tubs. The Loft Terraces have an excellent balcony, with room for loungers and a table and chairs. They’re exciting and suprisingly romantic, in a very modern way – destinations in their own right.
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