My sneak-peak inside the Raffles OWO Hotel

A few days ago after 9 years or so of waiting, the Raffles OWO Hotel opened in Whitehall to a great fanfare of a no-expense party with royalty and other high-status people. Obviously it will come as no surprise to you to learn that I too was there, yes about 9 hours after the party guests had departed.

The hotel is open though some of the facilities are not quite fully-functioning. As someone who wangles my way in to almost every building in London worth wangling, I thought I might go and check things out. Doubly so as no doubt some of my tourists will be staying here.

I did wonder whether I’d be allowed in, generally on tour I rather dress down rather in the style of a tech-giant CEO billionaire though some might say a little trampy.

Walking past this famous old building for a decade seeing the work unfold has been getting very exciting. I spend a lot of my time in 4 and 5 star hotels, usually the toilets, and I very much wanted to see what this most sumptuous of hotels had to offer.

I wasn’t just allowed in but when I mentioned what I do, a wonderful member of staff (and they were all wonderful) gave me a little tour.

Raffles OWO (Old War Office) includes no fewer than nine restaurants and also three bars. They are said to be possible the most opulent dining experiences in the world. It also means there is a restaurant or bar pretty much for one in every 10 bedrooms. There is also a Guerlain spa, a huge pool and gym, a vast and glittering ballroom and 120 bedrooms. The cheapest of these (and there are only 10) will set you back £1,100 per night, not including breakfast, rising to between £18,000 and £25,000 for the top suite. 

I think we can all agree that I found the perfect location for my upcoming 50th birthday party.

There are the 85 “branded residences” costing between £4 million for a one bedroom and £100 million for the five-bedroom penthouse (you can still snap that one up). These flats are no doubt the real bread and butter of the Hinduja brothers’ hugely ambitious project, whose purchase and subsequent redevelopment of the 770,000 square-foot building have cost them £1.4 billion. The hotel is likely just a very classy bonus.

Unusually I think, they have added theutmost luxury without losing any sense of history, endeavour and intrigue, no mean feat in a building, completed in 1906, that required 26,000 tons of Portland stone, 26 million bricks and hundreds of thousands of floor mosaics to create 2.5 miles of corridors and 1,100 rooms. 

The wonderful corridors are so wide to allow messengers on bicycles to ride through them and resplendent in their red and cream livery, including floor-length brass-buttoned curtains, that recall the uniforms at Horse Guards opposite. There is of course Horse Guards themed bar and also a rather secret Spy Bar in honour of everyone from Ian Fleming downwards. Sadly I wasn’t allowed in there just yet.

If the walls of The OWO could talk, they would surely have a lot to say. Thomas Lawrence spent time here in 1914, before becoming the legend that is “Lawrence of Arabia”. Ian Fleming took inspiration for James Bond in a building where he worked in the library.

A real life spy Krystyna Skarbek – better known as Christine Granville – flitted in and out of its offices during the Second World War, and is acknowledged by another of its key rooms, the Granville Suite.

There were politicians galore too. PM David Lloyd George, PM Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War, Kitchener. Richard Haldane also has a suite named after him. For those unfamiliar with Richard Haldane, he was quite a great character and one of the few who could hold their own against the verbal barbs of a certain Winston Spencer Churchill.

One memorable interchange came about in 1915 in the House of Commons when both men were in the political doldrums. Churchill, still relatively slim at 40, had mocked his 59-year-old rival’s increasing waistline and pointing at his tummy and inquired: “What’s in there, Haldane?”

“If it is a boy,” Haldane responded, “I shall call him John. If it is a girl, I shall call her Mary. And if it is wind then I shall call it Winston!”

Of course Winston Churchill himself spent much of his political career here. As First Lord of the Admiralty, the political head of the Royal Navy, from October 1911 to May 1915 (and again, briefly, from September 1939 to May 1940); as Secretary of State for War, between January 1919 and February 1921; in his first spell as Prime Minister, between May 1940 and July 1945.

Winston had a habit, on arrival at the base of the grand staircase, of reaching out for the carved lion at the foot of the right-hand balustrade, touching its maned head for luck. Then he would continue, up and around, to the first floor, where he was prone to addressing War Office staff from the Juliet balcony which looks back down to the lobby. The ideal spot from which a man of speeches could speak.

The OWO began its transformation in 2014, but it is not an isolated example of a spectacular government being transformed into the epitome of luxury travel. Just behind The OWO is the Corinthia Hotel, on Whitehall Place which began life as the Metropole Hotel in 1885, but was requisitioned during both World Wars, and served over half a century as offices for the Ministry of Defence (until 2007).  I must say I think the Corinthia Hotel has the best toilets in London, something I know a little about as a tour guide.

Nearby Admiralty Arch, on Trafalgar Square will be reborn as a new Waldorf Astoria in 2025 after a seemingly endless near decade of refurbishment work.

Admiralty Arch, on Trafalgar Square – another landmark with a direct Churchill association – will be reborn as a new Waldorf Astoria come 2025.The Corinthia Hotel on Whitehall Place

Rooms at the Raffles London at The OWO (57 Whitehall; 020 3907 7500) start at £1,100 per night but climb to £25,000 a night.

I really, REALLY, like the OWO. So many fancy hotels in London that are bought by international groups or owners end up ruined. Incredibly tacky and chintzy hotels aimed at incredibly rich and possibly tasteless Russian and Middle-Eastern millionaires. Or terribly banal and boring American hotels. Some are transformed into the style of the nationality of the owner and no doubt their hoped for guests but who wants to stay in London for something American, Emirati, Chinese or whatever. I know nothing would deter me more than staying in a hotel in India or Japan than if it resembled home.

The Raffles OWO just screams refined, elegant taste. Except of course it doesn’t scream as that would be undignified. It’s definitely the nicest hotel I have ever set foot in.