Anouska Hempel’s South Kensington hotel, open since 1978, remains temporarily closed, and the house that claims to have invented the boutique hotel has published no date for its return.
Anouska Hempel opened Blakes at 33 Roland Gardens, a dark-painted townhouse in South Kensington, in 1978. Its front page now carries two words, “Temporarily closed”, and no date for a return. The hotel was reported to have closed for renovation at the end of May 2022, with a reopening then planned for July 2023. That date passed, and none has replaced it.
A designer’s house
The hotel presents itself as the realisation of Hempel’s vision, and claims for itself the invention of the boutique hotel. Its rooms run from a Petite Single to the Hempel Suite, which the hotel sets apart as the room most fully imagined by the designer, looking over the courtyard. In the basement, Below is a late-night bar, and the restaurant above it drew on Asian and Italian cooking.
The house has long had a second life beyond its bedrooms. Blakes says its guests come largely from fashion, music, art and film, that the hotel is a regular location for shoots and interviews, and that designers have used its suites to show new collections.
A closed door with no date
The hotel describes itself as temporarily closed and publishes no reopening date, and Below is listed as closed until further notice. Nothing the operator has issued describes the renovation, its scope or who will run the hotel when it returns.