The renovation, by David Chipperfield Architects, was extensive but faithful to Saarinen’s original designs. Ground-floor office walls were taken down, opening the space into a grand lobby and expanding its signature diagrid ceiling. The windows and Portland stone facade got a careful restoration, but everything on the upper floors was removed and turned into 144 rooms (all of them suites) fit for a different kind of visiting VIP.
“This is insane,” a woman says as a butler takes her through a tour of the Rosewood Chancery’s spa. We’re in the basement levels of what used to be the US Embassy in London, where there’s now state-of-the-art hydrotherapy pools and a cold-plunge tank, along with a sauna and steam room. I’m stretched like a cat on a heated marble lounger that’s far more comfortable than any angular stone slab has the right to be. “This is kind of insane,” I think, as a staffer uses an instant-read thermometer to check that the pool water hasn’t cooled.
The Rosewood Chancery is a hotel some eight years in the making — a project that started to take shape even before US diplomats moved their British headquarters from Mayfair’s Grosvenor Square to Nine Elms, near Battersea, in late 2017. The hotel now occupies the hulking midcentury modern building designed by Eero Saarinen. A giant gilded eagle, once perched iconically over the building’s edge, now crowns the rooftop bar, a spot that’s already established itself as London’s poshest after-work hangout. The hotel has been accepting guests since early September, but its grand opening is Oct 14.
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