The Chelsea Townhouse

The Chelsea Townhouse occupies three red-brick Victorian houses on Cadogan Gardens, built in 1890 and once the Astor family's London address. For years the address traded as the Draycott Hotel; Cadogan Estate took the building back and, in September 2023, reopened it under Iconic Luxury Hotels as a 36-room house restored by the architect Gary Kellett. A private key opens onto the gardens themselves, where the mulberry trees that lend the rooms their names still stand.

Arrival is by doorbell rather than a revolving door. The entrance hall keeps its monochrome patchwork floor, a sweeping staircase and a two-person period lift, and the ground floor reads as a private home dressed for company. The Garden Room is a drawing room with its own bar that opens to the greenery for afternoon tea and evening drinks. The Mulberry, panelled and hung with a single painting, lays up for a dinner or turns over to a boardroom. The Front Room is a smaller lounge for a closer gathering.

For a private event the house takes bookings room by room or in full. The Garden Room holds around forty for a reception and two dozen seated; the Mulberry and Front Room suit smaller dinners and meetings. Taken whole, all three townhouses and their 36 bedrooms come under one roof for a wedding or a milestone, with a single events team and the private garden on the doorstep. It is a Relais & Châteaux member; its own dining is the Garden Room, with the group's Hans' Bar & Grill at the sister house next door.