Last word in luxury

Putting a modern spin on the word "classic", Gordon Campbell Gray is attempting to redefine the luxury hotel sector for business travellers. Helen Conway looks at his hotel, One Aldwych, and some of its competitors

Detail is everything to Gordon Campbell Gray, who in early June opens One Aldwych, a new London hotel promising to redefine luxury for travel-weary jet-setters.

The man whose career as a hotelier was interrupted by a long period working overseas for Save The Children cares about the small things which make a guest's stay more comfortable, but has no time for the superfluous. "Chocolates on the pillow? I have never worked that out," he says. "When are you supposed to brush your teeth?" Toilet roll folded into neat triangles? "All I can think is that someone's hands have been on the paper."

In broad terms, however, Campbell Gray says that his hotel will come as a refreshing change to the high-spending business and leisure traveller visiting London, and he expects the hotel to pick up bookings from across the spectrum of five-star hotels in the city.

He describes its style as "modern classic", which sets it apart from the traditional style of the Dorchester or the Savoy Group hotels by offering a contemporary look, but he is keen to stress that his hotel is not as determinedly fashionable as the likes of rival contemporary hotels such as the Halkin in Belgravia, where even the staff wear Armani, or its sister the Metropolitan on Park Lane, where the uniforms are from DKNY.

The place to be

Despite Campbell Gray's positive aversion to the hotel being dubbed "trendy", One Aldwych is already regarded in fashionable circles as "the" place to be in London. The first official booking for the hotel was from makers of the film tentatively titled Notting Hill, the sequel to Four Weddings And A Funeral. They want to film Julia Roberts meeting Hugh Grant against the contemporary backdrop of the hotel lobby. Gucci is among the first in the line-up of corporate clients using the hotel for the launch of a product. Forward bookings are so strong that the hotel had already closed reservations for June by mid-April.

The chief reason for the advance hype is Campbell Gray himself. His credentials as a hotelier in touch with the zeitgeist were established in the 1980s when he opened the Feathers in Oxfordshire and the Draycott in Chelsea, before moving to the USA to open the Maidstone Arms in the Hamptons on Long Island.

When it came to making the template for One Aldwych, Campbell Gray took a world tour, visiting about 120 top hotels and staying in 42, returning somewhat jaded from what he describes as "the dripping deluxeness" of it all. For his new hotel, he decided that simplicity was what people wanted, a pared-back luxury more in common with the way his potential guests are decorating their homes and offices these days. It is significant that the Clarence in Dublin, with its spartan decor, is one of his favourite hotels.

"I hate to use the expression ‘jet-setters'," he says, "but we are very much aiming towards more global clientele who have been to London many times, and who want a more sleek, understated five-star hotel. They have moved on from the English look with matching curtains and bedspreads, and want something a little fresher, but not minimalist. We are not a hip and groovy hotel."

Nicholas Rettie, general manager of both the Halkin and the Metropolitan, attributes to the first of these the start of the contemporary trend in London. "When the Halkin opened in 1991," he says, "there was astonishment that there was a hotel without any chintz fabric, no scatter cushions, and no rich swags. There are a lot of people who travel a lot and who are a little tired of the conventional, traditional look of it. Equally, there are plenty of people who hate the contemporary look. There is room for both in London. The wider the range of hotels in London, the better it is for the city."

Also in the contemporary mode, but coming in at a price level below One Aldwych, is the Bloomsbury-based property called Myhotel, scheduled to open this autumn. The hotel, which will have 76 bedrooms and eight suites, is focusing on the youthful market of creative trendies coming to do business in London's Soho. The hotel is being designed by a team at the Conran Design Partnership (CDP) who, at the hotel owner's request, are working alongside a feng shui master.

According to general manager Mark Goodman, the expert in the ancient Chinese art of room arranging had helped tone down the minimalist inclinations of CDP. "We didn't want to be too austere," he says, "so we have worked with them on softening the approach by using warmer colours than they might have chosen, like denim coverings for the beds, with deep orange throws."

Both One Aldwych and Myhotel would say they are not boutique or townhouse hotels on the basis that their hotels have more facilities, but the fact that they are privately owned and are representative of the vision of their owners, as well as their promise of a high degree of personal service to guests, does mean they have much in common with this sector.

At Myhotel, for example, Goodman envisages that guests will be able to go to one person to be checked in, change money and order theatre tickets, rather than have to call on different people for different tasks.

Avoiding intimidation

Campbell Gray promises unpretentious service at One Aldwych. While he is loath to pass any negative comments on London rivals, he is scathing about the "snobbism of older hotels". He says: "They make people feel intimidated. Staff have a superior air to guests and, for some people, it's all a bit threatening. There is no place for that here."

Given such new competition as One Aldwych and Myhotel, David Naylor Leyland, owner of three traditional-style townhouse hotels in London - Dukes, the Egerton and the Franklin - believes there is plenty of room for all styles of hotel in the city. "We are all appealing to people towards the top of the spending tree, so to speak, and the more good hotels there are, the more choice they will have," he says.

"Some people like contemporary hotels, some don't. There is a strong, vibrant market for both, and to say that either is dying or a passing trend is to miss the point."

In the meantime, there may be another threat on the horizon. Trendy New York hotelier Ian Schrager, in partnership with the Burford Group, is slowly working towards a spring 1999 opening for his first two London hotels, the St Martin's Lane and the Sanderson in Soho. Caterer contacted Schrager's New York office, which refused to comment on the development. But with so much discussion on the time it has taken Schrager to hit these shores, it's clear that his arrival is not going to go unnoticed.