I am headed to LA for Legends, #lcdqla and meetings this week. I have had loads of travel this Spring which I LOVE but, a nice hotel is such a treat while traveling. I am checking into the Sunset Tower today.  

I saw this hotel image on a favorite blog,  Hotel Chic, and had to know more...

I could have guessed that Kit Kemp, designer extraordinaire and co-owner of Firmdale Hotels, was behind this fresh fantastical hotel, The Haymarket in London.

“Hotels should be living things not stuffy institutions” maintain Tim and Kit Kemp, owners of Firmdale Hotels. There  are seven boutique hotels in London and one in New York. The high standards of excellence and unique townhouse style of decoration have over the years added up to a winning combination. Kit Kemp has designed the interiors of each hotel in her unique personal way which reflects a fresh, modern English style. She was named the Andrew Martin International Interior Designer of the Year in 2008 and has gone onto win many more accolades. Firmdale Hotels has received the Queens Award for Enterprise in 2000, 2006 and 2009, a recognition of its outstanding achievement to international trade. Further hotels are currently planned for London and New York.

 

Haymarket Hotel is among the younger hotels in the Firmdale group — or shall we call it a family? We’re disposed to think of Number Sixteen, the Knightsbridge, Soho Hotel and all the rest of the group’s other London hotels as instant classics: luxury-hotel values on a boutique-hotel scale, with a unique design personality courtesy of Kit Kemp. What’s not to love?

What’s special about Haymarket Hotel comes down largely to its location. Not far south of the Soho Hotel, and just off Piccadilly Circus, the Haymarket finds itself even more in the thick of Theatreland, surrounded by about as much culture as one could reasonably be expected to take. The National Gallery awaits, as do the low-culture pleasures of Mayfair’s famous shopping districts.

As expected, the Haymarket comes with its share of public and semi-private places — a conservatory, a drawing room, a private dining room — as well as a fine restaurant serving brasserie-style modern English cuisine, and a full-service spa. Where it steps out ahead of its sisters, however, is downstairs, where you’ll find an 18-meter swimming pool, complete with a poolside bar and a booming sound system. Takes the formula one better — which, given the already high quality of the formula, is just about all you could want.

Makes you want to jump the pond for a London visit, right?