Sunday, January 1, 2023

The bogs of Bayswater

Christian Huhnt recounts an evening at the launch of La Suite West

 

I have a personal connection to Inverness Terrace as twice in my life I’ve had to crash at my friend’s place there. It’s less than a minute from the new Anouska Hempel-designed hotel, La Suite West, and runs parallel to Queensway.

 

Bursting with cheap Chinese, Arabic and Mediterranean restaurants, this is an area that has great transport links to Oxford Street and the city centre that is also a very short walk from Hyde Park. As a result it’s full of tourists. Here, they arrive and depart every day, wandering around with heavy luggage trying to find their way. Most of them look like they’re hopelessly lost and in need of a good scrub. The tourist density here is almost equal to that of Victoria Station’s Gatwick Express exit or the Piazza San Marco in Venice.

 

The lobby of La Suite West, 41 – 51 Inverness Terrace, London, W2 3JN
Party guests at the launch of La Suite West

Please don’t get me wrong though. I have always felt that this place, the heart of Bayswater, has been totally underestimated. It is charming with lots of London Plane trees and a very cosmopolitan feel. Lady Weinberg, better known as the visionary designer and sometime actress Anouska Hempel, plainly agreed as she integrated all that was good about this atmosphere into the hotel that she has cleverly designed.

 

“Let’s celebrate with a little champagne”
Guests at the party included the British supermodel and VogueTV presenter Jade Parfitt and Duncan McDonald of Propeller Communications
Our party correspondent Christian Huhnt and Inga Buschke enjoying the launch of La Suite West
Angelo Valentino also represented “The Steeple Times” with his daughter
Guests at the launch of La Suite West
Susan Ansary, a regular on the party circuit, even put in an appearance

Arriving at the hotel entrance, you get a feel of how important it was for Hempel to grasp this outside space and use it as a communal environment for the guests. I was invited to visit on the evening of the hotel’s launch and this was the area where guests congregated. Here, along with the champagne, they served molecular bites including Nutella ice cream that had been shock frozen using liquid nitrogen. This, they told me, had been done to avoid ice crystals appearing and the result was a very smooth and creamy texture. I’d put money on this having left the menu now though as just days later I read news reports of a girl in Lancaster losing her stomach after drinking a cocktail made in a similar manner. With hindsight, I must say that my stomach is very glad that they got the measure just right.

 

When you enter the hotel, which first opened to guests three months ago, you feel as if you are visiting a Scientology church or traversing the ramp of a Star Wars space shuttle. Coming “onboard,” you enter a reception hall, in which a friendly concierge welcomes you. The whole interior is very minimalistic and has been reduced to hues of only black and white. A long fireplace leads you deeper into this shuttle, onto a main corridor, past the dining rooms and connects into to labyrinthian walkways that transport guests to their appointed suites.

 

I was told that the hotel rooms are all decorated in the same style and have similar layouts. They differ only slightly in size. On the evening of the launch, the largest could be admired and all of them had a very independent feel as they benefited from their own access to the street. Essentially, the rooms are quite small but all offer the contemporary luxury that any jetsetter would expect. The bathrooms have a particularly sophisticated feel and are clad in marble throughout. The extendable televisions hidden in the bed frames perfectly fitted with the minimalist design, but where this became bizarrely rigorous was the flexible water hose in the bathrooms that dispensed with the need for good old European toilet paper.

 

One of the hotel’s bedrooms
A toilet at La Suite West – complete with hose attachment but minus loo roll

La Suite West is a great step forward. In fact, it is a very audacious move towards upgrading a whole area that clearly has potential for more and which, at the time of writing, does not offer anything better than shabby hostels and seedy bed and breakfasts. The hotel is a well-arranged concept and evidently Hempel put a lot of thought into the execution of it. The design is well composed, but being German I did notice some of the carpets and minor details could have been a little better.

 

One last piece of advice: the management might want to ship in some bog roll. Some ageing Brit might decide to show up and I’m sure nobody would want a scene from Fawlty Towers to be played out in that rather smart lobby.

 

La Suite West, 41 – 51 Inverness Terrace, London, W2 3JN. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 3642 3928. Website: http://lasuitewest-px.rtrk.co.uk
 
Images by Andreas Kirchberger and Christian Huhnt.

The Steeple Times
The Steeple Times
We research and background check our articles. If you believe we have made and error in some detail please get in touch, we seek always to write the truth and stand against a press owned by a self selected few. Please help us, we will accept all your likes, subscriptions and anonymous suport. The Editor and his team at the Steeple Times.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

£1 per week Supports The Steeple Times

Help journalism to remain honest & independent. You can make a difference to the world today.

3,091FansLike
2,068FollowersFollow
14,745FollowersFollow
4,962SubscribersSubscribe

Subscribe For DAILY NEWS

Please subscribe, like and share this unique site, it helps us tremendously. The Steeple Times in return will send you an email at noon each and everyday, that we sincerely hope you will enjoy & look forward to seeing in your inbox.

AD
Advertisement

Trending Now

Shock Horror (Not)! MPs Engaged in “Sex & Heavy Drinking” On Trips Abroad

That that ‘The Guardian’ is shocked by news that MPs – mostly Tories, it seems – “engaged in ‘sex and heavy drinking’ on trips abroad” is actually beyond bloody laughable.

Crypto Crook’s Big Short – Will Sam Bankman-Fried Story Be Turned Into Blockbuster?

Crypto crook Sam Bankman-Fried astonishingly gets to hang out with the author of ‘The Big Short’ in spite of being on £207 million bail and now has not only Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer onside but also Prince Andrew’s judge to face also.

Five Unlikely Things Famous Footballers Did Next…

David Lennox shares the little-known stories of what five famous footballers did next after retiring their pitch time prowess – amongst them everything from novel writing to forensic detective work.

Most Popular Articles

Justice for James Scurlock

Power of social media proven after senseless killing of James Scurlock in Omaha, Nebraska allegedly by a controversial bar owner named Jake Gardner who has been photographed with Donald Trump.

Moron of the Moment – Prince Harry

With his marriage to the woman formerly known as Meghan Markle, Prince Harry has morphed into an utter bore   Prince Harry used to be a...

Scobie Orf!

‘MeGain’s’ bestie Omid Scobie deservedly gets slammed by ‘Yankee Wally’ Sadie Quinlan for getting her shut down on Twitter; this childish chap should now just ‘belt up, wrap up and shut up.’

A Massive Media Maelstrom – McCann, Mandelson and Maxwell

Matthew Steeples highlights how the ‘Mandelson Media Method’ is very much in play in both the case of the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein connection and the renewed interest in the Madeleine McCann disappearance.

The Phil & Matt Show

Phillip Schofield filmed smoking shisha with his alleged ex-lover Matt McGreevy (and pictured in bed thereafter); another image shows the pair together in photograph...

Plane Perverted

EXCLUSIVE – Previously unnamed 9-year-old child pictured on the lap of Jeffrey Epstein on his plane in ‘Daily Mail’ suggested to be daughter of billionaire Glenn Dubin.

Moron of the Moment 2021 – Richard Madeley

As the new Diana, Princess of Wales statue is mocked as looking like him, ‘Dorian Gray of Daytime Telly’ Richard Madeley pathetically claims he got PTSD due to worrying about his son’s wedding.

Most Liked...

Ampika Pickston

Ampika Pickston
Oldham born divorcee and former glamour model Ampika Pickston describes herself as “feisty, fun loving and warm hearted”. Now based in Hale Barns, Cheshire...

Picture of the Week: The Wallies of Whalley

Picture of the Week: A field at Whalley Arches, Lancashire before and after flooding
Image of flooded Lancashire field complete with sign advertising it as a development site for 39 homes illustrates the perils of building on flood...

Was Mucky Minx Meghan Markle A ‘Yacht Girl’ For ‘Randy Andy’?

Was Meghan Markle A ‘Yacht Girl’ For ‘Randy Andy’?
As author Kirby Sommers suggests that the then Meghan Markle likely spent time with Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein before she met Prince Harry, we again highlight the mucky, murkiness and mendacious manner of this alleged “yacht girl.”

Suggestions Please – Best & Worst of 2022; Heroes & Villians

Suggestions Please – Best & Worst of 2022; Heroes & Villians
‘The Steeple Times’ requests submissions of the best and worst people of 2022 along with suggestions of those who’ll be missed and who won’t.

Hacked Off Piers! Piers Morgan’s Twitter Infiltrated

Hacked Off Piers Morgan Hugh Grant
As Piers Morgan gets hacked on Twitter, we remind readers of his ongoing spat with the especially ‘Hacked Off’ actor Hugh Grant.