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A short stroll from the gentle hubbub of Sloane Square, and concealed in a row of Victorian red-brick mansions, appears an elegant new hotel. Transformed into a modish yet quintessentially English billet, At Sloane opened its doors in September and is now complete, following the launch of its all-day restaurant. The fruit of a six-year-long build, the unveiling of this particular Cadogan Estates venture has been met with much interest.
At the helm of the project was interior designer and art collector François-Joseph Graf, along with hotelier Jean-Louis Costes. The two envisaged a refined boarding house that nodded to 19th-century British opulence, with an arresting Parisian touch. Originally housing a number of mansion flats, the building on the boundary of Chelsea and Belgravia has certainly been transformed into a lavish getaway. The property itself was built in 1889, by none other than Edwin Thomas Hall, the architect behind Liberty & Co and the Old Library at Dulwich college. A particular task that fell to Costes and Graf was restoring the façade to its former glory and overseeing the addition of a sixth floor.
The sultry inner furnishings paint a deliberately indulgent fin de siècle atmosphere. In the underground bar, for instance, there is an invitingly warm merlot hue with dark wooden wall panels and chairs reupholstered in burgundy velvet. All of At Sloane’s lighting was acquired by the Oscar Graf Gallery in Paris, which specialises in 19th- and early 20th-century art. Twenty original WAS Benson lights have been hung throughout the mansion, casting a romantically dusky glow in the communal rooms. The Neo-Greek entrance hall softens the darker rooms.
The dining chamber was inspired by James Whistler and Thomas Jeckyll’s famed Peacock Room, which they filled with exquisite Kangxi porcelain. Here there are 300 Chinese vases, personally chosen by Graf in Singapore, arranged on delicate latticed and spindled shelving in the Aesthetic Movement style. The designer decided to do away with the original emerald and gold paint, opting instead to line the walls behind the shelves with antique mirrors from Vincent Guerre.
The restaurant serves up traditional French cuisine – feast on pommes allumettes, thon avocat épicé or pain perdu with a classic cocktail. After a long day of lounging, venture upwards to one of the 30 bespoke bedrooms and suites. Here, you’ll find intricate mosaic tiles and great Victorian pedestal basins in the bathrooms.
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