Painted brick walls and armchairs upholstered in army blankets fill the lobby|The Hubbard & Bell restaurant is mid-century modern-inspired|The reception bar|Mustard-yellow banquette seats and Vitra Eames DSW chairs in the restaurant|The rooms are small but refined with crisp white linen and leather panelled headboards|A move away from generic room furniture|Bespoke wallpaper by Toby Triumph and Marcus James based on Holborn’s history|Signage for The Hoxton Hotel|A modernist black-and-white grid marquee over the entrance|The Grade II listed building previously acted as an HQ for both BT and instrument manufacturer George Kent||
Subtle, adaptable and refined – The Hoxton Hotel matures for its new branch in central London.
Compared with its first establishment in Shoreditch, The Hoxton hotel‘s follow-up in Holborn has grown up. Inhabiting the Grade II-listed building on High Holborn that has previously acted as headquarters for both BT and instrument manufacturer George Kent, the space has retained its identifiable exposed concrete façade with a subtle new modernist black-and-white grid marquee over the entrance.
Inside, the modernist-industrial look continues, making for a mature and moody environment that is in keeping with its central London location. For the communal areas, owner Ennismore collaborated with the design team behind private members club Soho House Group (SHG), and with design consultancy Brinkworth for the rest.
The lobby has a backdrop of more exposed concrete, painted brick walls, and wide-plank wooden floors, filled with a mixture of low lounge seating in dark tones of leather and wool. The SHG designers aimed to create a laid-back, eclectic and adaptable space that worked from day to night, which uses unusual textures to define points of interest. Some armchairs, for example, are upholstered with upcycled army blankets and dyed hessian sacks.
The Hubbard & Bell restaurant is mid-century modern-inspired and brighter, thanks to a ceiling of skylights. Blue and white painted floorboards underpin a cool palette, with highlights of mustard yellow on the leather banquette seats and Vitra Eames DSW chairs.
Rooms are small but refined, forgoing the unfinished factory look in favour of crisp white linen, leather panel headboards and bespoke designed wallpaper. Brinkworth commissioned illustrators Toby Triumph and Marcus James to create the wallpaper patterns based on Holborn’s history. The resulting designs are witty and intricate, with traditional-looking features that reveal what Triumph describes as a “weird British eccentric twist” on closer inspection (see: pigs riding penny farthings, and roller skates made from London buses).
Back downstairs, other in-house extras include the Cheeky nail parlour, a buzzy Miami-meets-mid-century space, complete with neon signs and vintage salon chairs; basement restaurant Chicken Shop; coffee bar Holborn Grind; and The Apartment – a series of meeting and events spaces that are available for hire and conceptually based on a Manhattan home.
Next, Ennismore plans to continue the brand’s cultivation by opening more branches in Amsterdam, New York and Paris.
