HAVING observed for some time the progress of Jasminder Singh’s new landmark hotel, The Londoner, under construction in Leicester Square, the GG2 Power List can report only that it becomes more impressive on each new examination.
More on that below, but, first, to rehearse the story of Singh himself, the proprietor of the Radisson Blu and Edwardian hotels – a story that exemplifies so many of those on the GG2 Power List, who arrived in the UK (by boat, plane or via a maternity ward) with a dream, and who then went on to realise it.
Singh was born in Dar es Salaam, in what is now Tanzania, in 1951. His father came from the Punjab and his mother was already in Kenya, where Singh attended a Christian mission school. “My father and mother had a hard life,” he says, recalling his childhood. “My father worked long hours for the East Africa Railway while I lived with my grandparents in Nairobi.”
He came to England in 1968 at the age of 17 to study. His parents followed him here in 1973 and to begin with, they ran a small post office in Stamford Hill, north London.
Like very many Indian-origin Britons who left or were forced to leave their African homes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Singh arrived suffused with ambition and determined to provide for his mother and father. “They worked very hard and I wanted to show I valued and appreciated everything they had done and wanted to take care of them,” he says.
He qualified as a chartered accountant in 1974 and the next year, with his father and an uncle, was able to raise enough money to buy a small, down-at-heel hotel in Kensington, refurbishing and later selling it on at a profit.
Displaying both a grasp of finance and a taste for risk, Singh quickly became the leader in the family business and before long bought out his uncle’s interest. He established the Edwardian Hotels brand in 1977 and began to build up a stable of prestigious properties in prime central London locations, including the Vanderbilt in South Kensington (Singh’s first Edwardian hotel) and the Savoy Court – now the Radisson Blu Edwardian Sussex, at Marble Arch.
But it was not all plain sailing: in 1992, during the deep and long recession following the late 1980s property-market crash, Edwardian Hotels was in danger of going bust and only a major restructuring the next year saved the company – Singh’s bankers showed well-founded confidence in his ability to turn around what remained a fundamentally sound business, as time has proven.
Edwardian has gone from strength to strength, and Singh now owns 12 hotels, not counting The Londoner, most of them in in the capital, but with one in Manchester and one in Guildford.
It was in 1993 that Singh first struck a partnership with Radisson. The partnership allowed his group to remain privately owned, while the hotels also benefited from the cachet and network effects of being associated with a global brand.
In 2012 all the Radisson Edwardians were rebranded and had “Blu” added to their names, further strengthening the association between Edwardian and Radisson’s rapidly expanding upscale sub-brand. It was, incidentally, an occasion that coincided with Singh’s purchase of the West End Odeon site for his Londoner project.
Back in 2003 as a brand adventure separate from the Radisson alignment, Singh purchased the charming and historic May Fair Hotel, on Stratton Street, from the Intercontinental Group. It was his first new hotel in a decade. The venue was essentially a monument to the roaring Twenties, and embodies a history replete with aristocrats and rogues, celebrities and the jet-set. The underground ballroom (perhaps re-imagined in the Londoner Hotel, with its 1,000 capacity basement ballroom) was a safe party venue during the Blitz, patronised by the cream of London society, most of them in uniform.
Three years after Singh bought it, the hotel was re-launched following a £75 million refurbishment, with more than 400 rooms and 37 suites. Each year it hosts London Fashion week in February and is also, with The May Fair Theatre, one of the locations for the annual BFI London Film Festival. It hosts press conferences in its screening room and, more routinely, lays on lavish teas for directors and journalists looking to interact. It is also the venue for Eastern Eye’s celebrity-laden, annual Arts Culture and Theatre Awards (EE ACTAs). Many events are in keeping with the spirit of the hotel’s showbiz history.
If the impressive Radisson Blu Edwardian Heathrow is the flagship of Singh’s fleet, then The May Fair is the luxury yacht. It is a jewel in the crown, an exquisite capsule of quiet class in deepest Mayfair; and it is where Singh feels most at home, and can sometimes be found observing life from the corner of the famous May Fair Bar.
What, then, will The Londoner mean for Singh and his Edwardian chain when it opens in 2020?
Back in the 1980s, when Edwardian was expanding rapidly, Singh’s hotels encapsulated the energy, ambition and outward-looking attitude of a revived city, and even a revived nation, transformed from its shabby 1970s self and eager for modernisation, growth and engagement with the buzzing, globalising economy.
Perhaps by chance rather than design, The Londoner will open at a similarly historic time, as the UK turns its attention away from Brussels and the EU (though hopefully not from Europe), and towards a new destiny as an independent country. If that turns out to be the nation’s 21st-century path then The Londoner – individual, distinctive, advanced – will hopefully be a fitting symbol of Britain as it sails onward.
“It has long been a vision of mine to create a lifestyle hotel destination in a prime central London location and I am proud to watch this property take shape,” Singh told the GG2 Power List. “We are supported and aligned with a number of international, best-in-class partners to deliver the work, including engineers Arup, project developers McGee, interior design team Yabu Pushelberg and project architects Woods Bagot.”
One of the most remarkable things about Singh’s new Leicester Square hotel is that it has almost become a work of art itself, in the tradition of great city centre-piece hotels of the past.
A requirement of Westminster Council is that when a large building is approved it must incorporate a piece of public art, “to give something back to the civic environment in the midst of commercial development”.
The Londoner – quite apart from its myriad technical innovations – has taken this idea to heart by commissioning an elaborate façade of 15,000 3D blue faience tiles from artist Ian
Monroe, who created a design that combines the art-deco DNA of Oscar Deutsch’s original Odeon chain with historic London Underground designs.
This link between the past and the future is underscored by all the tiles coming from a rescued artisan terracotta factory in Blackburn and mostly being hand-made by a single craftsman, Arnold Ritelas.
The Londoner will contain six subterranean floors going down hundreds of feet, just like the Underground, and they had to be excavated carefully not to touch any existing tunnels or a nearby UK Power Network high voltage supply conduit.
The deep levels will include the huge ballroom, a spa and swimming pool, and two cinemas, and the dig was actually virtue made of necessity: UNESCO as well as Westminster Council rigidly adhered to a nine-storey height limit above ground.
The hotel is BAFTA and Hollywood-friendly. Studio Yabu Pushelberg was also responsible for the clean lines and mid-century minimalism of the Four Seasons Toronto and the St Regis Hotel in San Francisco, and The Londoner will, by underground passage, allow movie stars to transit from their suites to their premieres without ever having to suffer the London drizzle.
The innovation that characterises The Londoner has been a part of Edwardian’s approach to the business for some time, notably through its dedicated virtual butler, “Edward” – a computer AI personality that responds to more than 1,600 different customer enquiries and requests via their smartphones (with questions learned and constantly updated by the programme). During the past half-decade Edwardian has perfected 32 of its own apps, all proprietary tech that helps the group to integrate and speed up everything from food- and maid-service to booking and accounting (Edwardian works closely with Oracle).
“I am awed by the scale of technological progress and how that has impacted every industry in the world,” says Singh. “The hospitality sector today is virtually unrecognisable from when I began this business. Today’s guests expect to be connected at all times and they want a seamless experience that they can trust.”
The new hotel is designed to be “digitally-driven” and it will set a sector benchmark for connectivity with advanced, flexible and resilient data and communications such as integrated IT and AV systems in the event and function spaces.
The Londoner’s contractors, Arup, have configured a system of future-proofed technology, built around a super flexible, high-speed-fibre backbone and woven into the fabric of the building in a deliberately unobtrusive way, to enhance but not define the user experience.
The idea is that when everything is successfully digital, you simply stop noticing it and instead enjoy the benefits, as Singh says: “We react to new trends, but also remain confident that the essence of Edwardian Hotels London is upheld. It is important that visitors trust in the quality of the experience we provide. For more than 40 years, we have updated the products we offer to guests, developing a reputation of surprising and delighting them.”
Iype Abraham, Edwardian’s commercial development director sums up the plan, saying, “The Londoner exemplifies Edwardian Hotels London’s bold philosophy. Building a complex and ambitious project in an iconic area is a demonstration of our commitment to London and our ability to deliver high-quality, sustainable, integrated hotels designed for the future.
We are privileged to play a pivotal role in the regeneration of Leicester Square and contribute to the evolving skyline of The Ahead of the planned opening in 2020 The Londoner - which has secured a £175 million Green Loan from HSBC UK to ensure it will also be one of the greenest hotels in the UK - is already being swamped with enquiries and advance bookings, and recently announced that the hotel’s general manager - stewarding 600 employees - will be Charles Oak, formerly of The Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland and Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, and who was most recently at Singh’s May Fair Hotel.
Singh was made an OBE for services to the hotel industry in 2007.
